


The Stark Graduate Repertory Theatre

by dustbear



Series: ghost lights [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Theatre, F/M, Gen, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-12 04:04:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/807020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustbear/pseuds/dustbear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson is about to present his doctorate dissertation in History, but an old administrative error forces him to take his one missing elective credit in the Theatre department. Unwillingly pried away from his stacks of books and well researched footnotes, Phil is drawn into the motley band of fools working in the Stark Repertory Graduate Theatre's scene shop. </p><p>If he starts spending an undue amount of time there due to a funny and competent master carpenter with amazing blue-grey eyes, well, there's that.</p><p>(A college backstage theatre AU! Expect lots of ridiculousness.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I said I would never write an AU, but then I did. This will be ridiculous, and it will be long, and there will be shenanigans(nothing too shenanigan-ey, thus the Teen rating). I'm also a bit close to the world of theatre, as it was my vocation for many years, so please tell me if any bits need further explanation, although I will try my best to explain some terms in the footnotes of each chapters.

Phil Coulson is feeling pretty fine today. He saunters into his advisor’s office like a boss, because his thesis is nearly complete, his research is coming together more than nicely, and he’s going to graduate with high honors. Finally, after eight years of work, he’s about to append a “Dr.” to the front of his name, which has always been a secret nerdy dream of his, second perhaps only to being an astronaut, but he’s always had imperfect eyesight, so this will have to do. Anyway, he’s in the last semester of his doctorate, he’s nearly completed his dissertation, and he’s feeling quite good about this.

So, of course, because he’s feeling on top of the world, the world has to take Phil Coulson down a peg. His advisor frowns at him and tells him that somehow, due to the magic of bureaucracy, he’d managed to miss one required elective credit during his undergraduate degree, and despite the fact that his mother had already framed _that_ diploma(summa cum laude, in both majors - History and Political Science, thank you very much) on her wall four years ago, he needs to get that one credit done and his undergraduate transcript revised before he can even present his thesis, and take his required oral examinations.

“You’re kidding me. One elective credit. From undergrad? It’s halfway through the semester - class signups closed weeks ago.” Phil grumbles. More importantly, he’s supposed to graduate in two and a half months, and he needs to work on finishing his thesis - which is on the role of the museum in colonial history, by the way - not take underwater basket weaving or yoga or whatever stupid elective is actually still available this late in the semester.

“Take Theatre Practicum. They accept sign-ups throughout the semester, as long as they still have an upcoming show.” his advisor shrugs, obviously not considering this as much of a dilemma as Phil does.

“What’s that?” Phil asks.

“It’s a theatre department elective. Stagecraft lab, basically. Building and painting sets, mostly, unless you want to work backstage on a show. It’s mostly run by grad students - they’re good kids, you’ll be fine.”

“Fine.” Phil says, and storms out of the office, slamming the door behind him. He’ll send his advisor an apology fruit basket tomorrow.

\---

Phil registers for Theatre Practicum online and wanders into the Theatre Department’s building at nine am the next day. The building is old, and vaguely Communist in style, squarish and tall and grey concrete. The halls are filled with exceptionally attractive and young looking people hustling their way to class, and Phil feels a bit decrepit. The history department has older people and a lot more tweed and elbow patches, he thinks. He follows the taped up signs to the scene shop. It is dark, and quiet, and his footsteps ring out as he walks down a short ramp to the sliver of light emerging from what is probably his destination. “See Technical Director for assignment. Office hours 9am-6pm.” the class notation had said.

“Hey...” he starts, knocking sharply on the office door just inside the scene shop, with the “Hi, I am the Tech Director” sign on it. The sign is a rough hewn wooden one, cut into the shape of a word bubble, and clearly made by a former student. Phil pushes the door open. A broad shouldered man is sitting behind a heavy wooden desk, frowning down at a a stack of papers.

“Hi?” the blond man looks up from the pile of drafting spread across his desk, and recognition floods into Phil’s head. He knows the man.

“Captain Rogers?” Phil blurts out, his left hand automatically snapping into a salute.

“Uh...yes?” Rogers responds, crinkling his nose and forehead at the unanticipated greeting.

“Sergeant Phil Coulson, sir. 1st Ranger Regiment. I served in Afghanistan with you.”

“Oh! 1st Regiment!” Rogers leaps out of his chair and sharply returns the salute. “Your team found me and pulled me out of there, as I recall. You saved my life a decade ago.”

“Yes. I watched you while you were sleeping. Er, I monitored you while you were unconscious. On the medical transport out.” Phil blurts out. Captain Steve Rogers is a legend. It is is odd to see him here, in a long sleeved henley rolled up to his elbows and traces of sawdust in his hair. The last time he’d seen Captain Steve Rogers, Rogers was in full dress uniform, getting the Medal of Honor pinned to his chest for almost singlehandedly saving his entire squadron. The time before that, Phil had watched as his own team’s medic worked on the unconscious Captain Rogers, certain that any commendation due to that man  would be a posthumous one.

“Stand down, Sergeant. I mean, actually sit down, not go into parade rest. Please. It’s just Steve now, by the way.” Captain Rogers says, and his upright posture relaxes into a slump, and he looks surprisingly...normal, and not at all like a very heavily decorated veteran.

“It’s Phil, then.” Phil offers, and sits down in the incredibly plush armchair across from Steve’s desk. He’s been just a student for eight years too, not an Army Ranger. Frankly, he’s probably more comfortable being treated as a student now.

“Taking advantage of the GI Bill too?”  Steve asks.

Phil nods in response, “Yes, sir.”

Steve taps on his keyboard and pulls up the semester’s student roster.

“You’re in for theatre practicum? Just one credit?” Steve asks.

“Yes, sir.”

“Stop calling me sir, or I’ll kick you out of my shop.” Steve mutters. “Alright, I’m going to assign you to my master carpenter, if that’s okay. We’re a bit understaffed on carpenters this semester, especially in the mornings. What’s your schedule like?”

“I teach on Monday and Wednesday mornings. It’s pretty free, otherwise. I’m just finishing my dissertation this semester.”

“Really? Are you’re doing a PhD?”

“History.” Phil shrugs. It had always been an interest of his, which surprised everyone. Apparently, he looked like an accounting major.

“Not what I expected. You look like an business school type.” Steve says, looking at Phil thoughtfully. Perhaps slacks and a buttoned down, collared shirt was not the right clothing to be showing up to a scene shop in, Phil thinks, but it was what he usually wore. “Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9am to 1pm work for you? If you do it for eight weeks, you’ll easily complete all your credit hours.”

“Yes, sir.” Phil responds, instinctively.

“I really will kick you out if you ‘sir’ me again.” Steve looks a bit exhausted. Phil thinks he understands. Rogers just wants to be a normal person. He suspects that most people here in the theatre department have no idea who Captain Steve Rogers even is.

“Sorry. I just wasn’t expecting to see you here.” Phil tries to explain.

“I wasn’t either. I took the scenic painting class for fun eight years ago as a freshman, and then I got sucked in. Work study for four years and they hired me after graduation, and I’ve been here since. I got promoted to tech director last year. It’s about as far from the military you can get.“ Steve says, and he looks quite satisfied about that.

“You look like you love it.” Phil offers, because Steve clearly lights up when he’s talking about his job.

“It’s the best place in the world, Phil. You’ll see.” Steve answers, smiling happily. “Come on, I’ll show you the shop before the kids get in.”

Steve’s “kids,” as he explains, are an assortment of work study students, graduate department TAs and the students taking Theatre Practicum and Stagecraft Lab. The shop is fairly quiet in the early mornings, because most classes are scheduled them. The students don’t start to drift in until ten in the morning, and space doesn't quite start to really fill up until the early afternoon.

Right now, the shop is empty. “Clint Barton is my master carpenter, but he has a class right now. He’s just an senior undergrad, but he’s better at it than all the grad students I had to pick from this semester. He’ll be in tomorrow, when you show up for your work hours.”

Steve walks Phil through the scene shop, pointing out the tools, and assuring Phil that he’ll get a safety orientation tomorrow. Then, a crash rings out from behind a roll up metal door. Steve slams his hand down on a large push button next to it, and the door opens slowly to reveal a wiry, rumpled man with a goatee and the messiest hair Phil has ever seen, bent over what looks like a large robot arm.

“What time is it?” the man asks, flipping his welding mask up.

“Tony, leave the door up so you don’t suffocate, and please use the safety screens if you’re welding. Try not to blind anyone but yourself. Have you been here since last night?” Steve sighs.

“Whatever, Rogers.” Tony says, but he does walk over to drag a set of bright yellow welding screens over to his work area before returning to his work, ignoring both Steve and Phil.

“That’s Tony Stark. Eternal grad student. Finished undergrad at eighteen, but he’s been here for seven years for some reason.” Steve says, already looking exasperated.

“Stark? As in...” Phil starts, because it’s impossible to study modern military history, or be in the modern military without being well aware of the Stark family.

“As in Stark Industries. And also as in Stark Graduate Repertory Theatre. Yes, our graduate theatre company is named after his mother.”

“Er, what does he do here?” Phil asks nervously, looking at the sparks fly behind the protective barrier as the smell of molten metal drifts by.

“Everything he can sink his hands into.” Steve says, frowning. It looks like there isn’t much love lost between Steve and Stark. Phil suspects that Tony Stark is the one wildcard on Steve Rogers’ otherwise tightly run ship, and that their personalities are probably as mixed as the metaphor.

“He’s the scenic designer for our upcoming show. That opens in two weeks. Last show, he was the lead actor, although he did have to audition for that.” Steve pauses a bit. “I can’t say he’s not talented. He is. But I don’t assign students to him for a very good reason.”

“He’s not a good teacher?” Phil asks.

“No, he’s a fine teacher, but he’s also a walking OSHA violation. The students adore him, but last semester, he managed to ‘accidentally’ weld one into a giant steel prop suit of armour.” Steve does not shy away from using finger quotations.

“ _Into_ the armour?”

“Correct.” Steve says, trying to continue looking annoyed, but a smile is already quirking up.

Right then, a tall and confident looking woman breezes into the shop. She is gorgeous, and stern, and begins glaring in Steve’s direction immediately. Steve looks her over. Phil thinks that Steve is blatantly checking her out as his gaze drifts down her legs, which end in a pair of strappy and expensive looking stilettos. However, Steve’s expression clearly indicates that he is not happy with what he sees.

“Pepper. Miss Potts. What have I said about closed toed shoes in the shop?” Steve scolds. Pepper rolls her eyes, unimpressed and stoic.

“First, they _are_ closed toed. Second, I wouldn’t be in the shop at all today if you weren’t late for the production meeting, which is right now. Is Tony here too? It’s like wrangling cats, I swear.” she moans.

“Oh, fudge.” Steve says, and Phil snorts a bit, because really, who says oh _fudge_? “Phil, this is Pepper Potts, she’s our only graduate stage manager this year, and I have a meeting to go to, because we all do what Pepper says. Remember that, it’ll save your life someday. You can find your way out, right? Your work hours start tomorrow!”

Phil nods, as Steve jogs away hastily. “Tony’s in the metal shop?” Pepper asks, as another loud crash is heard in the general vicinity of Tony Stark. Phil nods again as Pepper storms off in that direction.

He walks out of the shop alone, pausing a bit to stick his head into the tool room. The tools are old, but they are carefully maintained, and neatly arranged. He looks around the shop again. It is large, and smells like sawdust and a little bit of metal and grease. It reminds him a bit of the motor shop from the Army, if perhaps a bit looser, and messier, and odder. It’s not where he expected to find himself, having been surrounded by nothing but books and papers and the library for the past eight years, but it feels a little bit like a place he could grow to like a lot.

Tomorrow is Tuesday, and he’ll be back here at 9am.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About this universe:
> 
> 1\. The Stark Graduate Repertory Theatre is the graduate level theatre company attached to Cal State Los Avengeles. However, the theatre department's scene shop also serves all undergraduate theatre productions.
> 
> For narrative purposes, I'm not introducing ever single person that would work in the scene shop, but...
> 
> 2\. Like many college scene shops, a lot of labour comes from the Theatre Practicum and Stagecraft Lab classes, which essentially allows students to work on a theatre production for class credit. The work is usually done by being on a show's running crew(such as running the lightboard, managing props and wardrobe, etc) or by working in the scene shop to built and paint sets. 
> 
> 2\. Steve Rogers is the Technical Director, usually a role held by a staff or faculty member. The Technical Director is responsible for overseeing and coordinating all technical production elements, such as the set and lights.
> 
> 3\. The Master Carpenter role is usually held by a staff member in larger educational institutions, but is often held by a graduate or undergraduate student in smaller colleges and universities. In this case, Clint Barton is working as the master carpenter as part of his work-study program. The job is essentially the lead carpenter for the shop - Clint takes primary responsibility for completing all wood and metal elements of the set, with a crew consisting mainly of students.
> 
> 4\. The stage manager organizes and coordinates the production itself. Pepper is present in all rehearsals, and after the show opens, she will run the show, calling cues and wrangling cats. As she is the only graduate level stage manager this year, she is certainly overworked.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I should apologize for what is going to be a very slow build of the Clint/Phil relationship, but I'm not really sorry. This is mostly my excuse to write backstage theatre shenanigans. Again, please leave a comment if anything is confusing, and I will explain! There are lots of end notes.

Phil walks back into the scene shop at 10am, surprised to find it fairly empty, although the loading dock’s door is up, and the place is washed in sunlight. He walks onto the dock, squinting into the light. There is a truck parked there, filled with lumber.

“Hey, you’re Phil Coulson.” Phil hears, as a head pops up from the edge of the loading dock. Phil walks over and looks down. The man he is looking at is young, his eyes a deep and piercing blue-grey, and he is wearing a white shirt so ridiculously tight that Phil feels blood involuntarily rush to his cheeks.

“Yes?” Phil says.

“Dude, hi. I’m Clint. Clint Barton.” Clint says, leaping up onto the dock to offer Phil his hand. Phil shakes it firmly.

“Hey. I’m here for Theatre Practicum?” Phil says, hastily reorganizing his less than pure thoughts, especially if this is apparently the man that will be supervising his next couple months of trying to be a theatre carpenter.

“Really, why? It’s a long way from the history department.”

“How did you know -” Phil starts, because he doubts that he still looks like he’s from the History department, now that he’s managed to dig out an old pair of jeans.

“Um, I’m in your class? The Age of Discovery? Mondays and Wednesday mornings, butt early in the morning.” Clint says.

“Oh.” Phil answers. He does teach that class. It is a very large class, populated mostly by sleepy sophomores and juniors. “I’m sorry - it’s a huge class and - “

“ - and also, I don’t really attend the lectures, so you wouldn’t have seen me. It starts at eight in the morning, dude. That's just cruel. Sorry. “ Clint looks a little bit apologetic, but not really. “Okay, new kid, help me unload the truck.”

“Kid? I’m a decade older than you are.” Phil says wryly, partially to remind himself that he should not be looking at Clint’s very young butt as he bends over to pull a small stack of of 2x4s off the truck bed.

“Oooh, you’re sassy. I like that, Professor Coulson. Alright, help me move this, and then you get your safety briefing before today’s horde of students come in.” Clint says, and Phil complies.

 

It turns out that Clint is exceptionally competent, which impresses Phil even more. Phil is pretty familiar with the scene shop’s tools from a short stint in the motor pool during his early years in the Army, so after safety instruction - “I know you probably know all this, but it’s important anyway” Clint says - they fall into a quiet routine of building large rectangular walls together on a large table. "Stage flats," Clint says, "They're the backbone of pretty much every set." Phil gets pointed to the chop saw, and is given a cut list. He delivers stacks of pre-cut wood to Clint, who is efficiently assembling the walls. They don’t speak much, although they move around each other easily enough, Phil occasionally interrupting to ask about the messily scrawled numbers that make up the list of instructions he has.

“Coulson. Phil. It is so nice to have someone competent here, you have no idea.” Clint mumbles, squaring up the edges of two pieces of wood before screwing them together.

“Why do you say that?” Phil says, marking another piece of wood, and double checking it.

“It’s your first day, and we’ve completed most of the flats that need to get painted by the afternoon lab in two hours. Usually, I just have four freshman kids trying not to drive a screw into their thumbnails. If they don’t, I call it a success. It’s why we’ve been so behind schedule. Well, and also because Stark missed the note that _A Chorus Line_ is supposed to have a minimalist set. I had no idea how I was going to finish this all in just one more week, even with Stark single handedly fabricating all the metal bits.” Clint says. He sounds very genuine.

“Glad I could help. Maybe you can start showing up for my history class as thanks.” Phil snarks.

“I’ll try, Professor Coulson.” Clint says, and his grin lights up the room.

 

The lab students file in then, laughing and talking as they gather in front of Steve’s office, picking up orders from him. Clint calls over in their direction, ”Rogers! I want Natasha today.” and a small, lithe girl with red hair skips over. Phil knows her, because apparently the Stark Repertory Theatre scene shop is where he finds people he didn’t expect to see. Natasha, at least, is less of an anomaly than Captain Steve Rogers. She’s been in his classes before. Natasha Romanov is on track to graduate summa cum laude from the history department next year, and she’s the brightest student he’s seen in his time there, even if she comes with a large helping of hellfire, and an above average portion of brimstone.

“Heeeeey, Phil.” she sings, leaning over the table, and exposing an eyeful of cleavage that Phil respectfully averts his eyes from. “The history department let you out?”

“The history department let YOU out?” he responds, not quite cleverly.

“I’m a theatre minor.” she answers. “And I’m in the show too.”

“She’s a great dancer, did you know that?” Clint offers. “But for my purposes, she’s the only lab student this semester that I can trust to build something without supervision. Here, can you build this? I’ll give you Happy and Bucky for the heavy lifting.” he says, handing a oversized sheet of paper to Natasha.

“I take a hand truck for the heavy lifting, thanks. Those boys talk too much.” Natasha scowls, but she’s already walking over to the lumber rack and making small notes on the the sheet of paper.

****

Phil continues cutting wood to the dimensions on Clint’s written list as Clint becomes overrun with lab students. Clint laughs and jokes with them, and tries to explain the tensile strength of wood glue, which Phil tries not to find incredibly charming. At one, after completing his lab hours, Phil fills out his timesheet and tries to slip out quietly, dropping his timesheet in a folder by Steve’s door, but finds Steve at his side, casually bumping his shoulder.

"Good job today, Phil. I wish you had work study hours - I'd hire you in a heartbeat. Clint is really happy you’re here." Steve says.

"Well, you still get a couple months of free labour out of me anyway." Phil replies. “Wait, Clint’s happy I’m here?” A subtle, but unexpected, flush makes its way into Phil’s cheeks.

Steve raises an eyebrow. “He got you too, huh?”

“What?” Phil stammers.

“He charms every single person he meets. I mean, usually, it’s eighteen year old girls swooning over his tight t-shirts and nice hands, I don’t know, apparently they are very manly. But, I suspect even former Army Rangers aren’t immune.” Steve grins.

“Nooo. No. No, I’m not charmed. Not at all. I just like working with him.” Phil insists, willing a scowl on to his face. It’s true. Clint is very good looking, but Phil is _waaay_ too old for this. He just admires the man’s competence, and really, he’s just feeling a lot more comfortable in the scene shop than he’d anticipated feeling in this somewhat foreign environment. He’s busy justifying all this to himself, when Steve says something he misses.

“Sorry, I missed that. What did you say?”

“I said, Clint and Tony are pulling late nights this week trying to finish the set before dress rehearsals next week. And the scene shop is always happy to take volunteer labour.” Steve winks, and claps Phil on the back. Phil groans. It’s going to be an interesting two months, and he still has to properly format his dissertation.

\---

It is seven in the evening, and Phil shuffles out of the library, his head full of footnotes. Despite the fact that Phil rationally knows that he should go back to his apartment to review his research some more - the formatting guidelines are ridiculously strict and archaic, and he really needs to start paying better attention to them - he finds himself walking in the opposite direction, towards the theatre department.

The show, _A Chorus Line_ , is in rehearsal as he makes his way into the building. The corridors are scattered with young people in loose, dark, clothing and sneakers, slipping into stage doors. Through a recently opened door, he catches a glimpse of Natasha on stage, casual in yoga pants and a tank top. She is singing, and he knows the song. He’s never heard her sing before, because the history department doesn’t have much to sing about. He doesn’t get to hear her sing much in the few seconds before the door shuts quietly of its own accord, but it calms him as he makes his way down to the scene shop.

The shop is mostly quiet and dark, except for a constant buzzing, and a sound similar to eggs being fried in a cast iron pan. He walks towards the metal shop, where a light is flickering.

Tony Stark and Clint Barton are working together on something that looks like a large scaffold, side by side, their shoulders touching. They both have welding masks on, and Tony is operating the welder. Clint helps support the large structure, large leather gloves covering his long fingers. They work effortlessly around each other without speaking, Clint knowing where to place the metal pieces that Tony joins, and Tony instinctively keeping the sparks away from Clint’s face. The simple grace of the two men collaborating stirs up something in Phil, some wistful emotion that he can’t quite place yet.

 **** Phil decides that perhaps he should back off and give them some space. He’s certain he hasn’t been noticed, because he is very quiet when he wants to be. Of course, having thought that, he manages to slam his toe into an awkwardly positioned piece of steel pipe.

“Ow.” Phil says, as the other men stop what they’re doing to respond to the clanging noise that rings out as Phil desperately tries to stop a small bundle of pipe from toppling over.

“Phil Coulson?” Clint says, looking around over the yellow welding barrier, surprised. He flips his welding mask up, and his face is grimy, sweaty and soot covered, and Phil tries not to notice that the dirt actually makes Clint Barton look even better.

“Hey. It’s Phil, from morning lab. Er, Steve said that you might need help finishing the set?” Phil says, nervously.

“Um, yes?” Clint starts, but does not continue, and Phil is suddenly seized with the fear that he is unwelcome.

Fortunately, Tony chimes in, “Hey buddy, we really appreciate it, but we’re mostly done with the wood stuff and we don’t usually have lab students help with metalworking because we don’t teach it.”

“Oh, I can weld.” Phil answers, which are not the words he intended to fall from his mouth. But he’s said it, and now he feels really stupid, because now it sounds like he’s trying to interrupt them.

“Really?” Tony says, sounding a bit impressed. “What type?”

“Um, oxy and MIG mostly. It’s been a while, though, don’t let me interrupt you two.” Phil mumbles, starting to back off again.

“Wait, what, are you kidding? Noooo, please stay. Don’t make me beg. We need you.” Tony says, pushing the barriers aside to move closer to Phil.

“Um, sure, what do you want me to do?” Phil asks, not ignoring that Clint has retreated to the other side of the work table.

“Take my place. I have a thing to do.” Tony points to his welding rig. “Wire feed, it’s super easy.”

“What?” Phil asks.

“Take my place. Clint will explain.” Tony snaps, his brain already focused someplace else.

“Okay?” Phil says, but Tony is already marching away, leaving a trail of gloves and welding mask and jacket on various worktables between the metal shop and the door.

“I’m sorry, Phil. Stark is a character.” Clint sighs, moving back towards Phil.

“No worries. I’m sorry to interrupt. I just thought I could help.” Phil starts to apologize, but the look on Clint’s face has just taken on a delighted glow.

“Oh, you _will_ help. But for right now, come with me. Oh man, I can’t believe he’s actually gonna do it. Follow me, something spectacular is about to happen on stage.” Clint says, a smile breaking out, and Phil follows gladly.

****

Clint leads him past the backstage doors, ushering Phil through a fire exit at the audience level. Phil can see a table set up with monitors and a lighting console, planted right there in the audience, and Pepper is sitting behind it with another student. Pepper has a gigantic binder in front of her, covered with notes in her precise handwriting, and illuminated by a small light clipped to the table. She has a headset on, and is focused on the stage, where a row of students are singing.

Clint slips him a headset, which Phil looks at quizzically. “Put it on. You’ll see most of it on stage, but trust me, the really fun stuff is gonna happen over headset.”

Phil puts the headset on and leans back into the chair. Natasha is singing on stage again - “Please take this message to mother from me, carry it with you across to the blue sea” - and her voice carries in the auditorium sweetly, cracking slightly on the high notes, and with a lot more hurt emotion than he thought he’d hear out of the small girl. He glances over at Clint, who is also staring at Natasha. “I have no idea why she’s a history major,” Clint mumbles. “She’s exceptionally good at being a history major.” Phil responds, even though it seems like Natasha might happen to be exceptionally good at everything, and really doesn’t need him to defend her decisions.

He continues sitting beside Clint for several more minutes, their shoulders brushing together in the too-small chairs - “They were so helpful, they call me hopeless, until I didn’t know where else to turn,” a pretty, dark haired, girl sings - and Phil tries to not imagine the static electricity building up his side as Clint lets out a soft laugh at the number.

“I really like this show.” he whispers to Clint.

“You like musicals?” Clint whispers back.

“Yep.” Phil admits, and Clint chuckles, shaking his head.

 **** The current song winds out, and Clint shifts closer, bumping Phil’s shoulder. “Okay, now pay attention.” Clint says, as if Phil hadn’t already been paying rapt attention for fifteen minutes.

“But after all I caught on. After all, I saw what they were hiring.” a young actress starts to monologue.

 **** “Dance ten, looks three,“ she starts to sing, “And I’m still on unemployment, dancing for my own enjoyment - - ACKK!” --- and she squeals, panicking, and bolts off stage.

Because - a large, red suit of armour has just landed on stage. And it begins to dance. It begins to...sexy-dance, gyrating and thrusting on stage in time to the music.

“Tony built that suit when we did The Man of La Mancha last year.” Clint explains.

“Tittts and ass, bought myself a fancy pair...” Tony Stark’s voice floats out of the headset, a bit tunelessly. “Tightened up the derriereeeee...” Stark sings, and the suit of armour shimmies along, clanking and shaking as it attempts to - well, Phil has no idea what that dance move is, except that it would be utterly indecent if not being performed by a suit of armour.

Tony continues singing another bar - “Got my bingos bongos done” - and then whirls around, to show - I LOVE YOU PEPPER - lettered on his, well, on his shiny metal armoured butt.

Pepper, who’d been stunned for several whole seconds, finally stands up with an exceptionally crimson sort of look on her face. She raises a hand, snapping her head up to a glass paneled room above the audience, and the pre recorded instrumental music cuts out abruptly. Tony, on stage, yanks his helmet off, and he is grinning wider than Phil ever thought a person could grin. “Happy anniversary, Pepper!” Tony says gleefully, as the cast backs up carefully, hurrying offstage with purpose.

“Backstage. Stage left. Now, Tony.” Pepper responds sharply, and her tone is not the one that she’d use to say “Oh, Tony, that’s so sweet. Happy anniversary to you too.”

Tony shuffles offstage miserably, and Pepper storms briskly in his direction. 

“Oooh, she’s livid. This will be _so good_.” Clint says, reaching over to turn up the volume on Phil’s headset. Phil ignores the warmth of Clint’s arm brushing against his skin.

“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?” Pepper’s voice yells in Phil’s ear, as Clint snickers next to him. “WHY WOULD YOU PULL A STUNT LIKE THAT?”

“I thought -”

“DO NOT INTERRUPT REHEARSAL. NOT NOW. NOT EVER.”

“But it’s our anniversary.” Tony’s voice pleads.

“I have five days until tech week starts. Five. And I already know that Thor is writing the most ridiculous cues, and I cannot afford to screw up this show.”

“But - “

“I’m working, Tony. I do my job, and you do yours, which is getting a goddamn set done in two more days and I do NOT have time to deal with your bullshit right now.”

“But - Pepper - “

“GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, TONY STARK!” Pepper bellows, and Phil cringes at the sharp squeal his headset makes. Clint reaches over to yank it off his head, tossing it into a basket next to Pepper’s table.

“Okay, show’s over, let’s get back to the shop before Tony locks himself in to mope all night.” Clint says, pulling Phil along.

****

When they return to the scene shop, Tony is already there, sprawled face down across a worktable. Phil thinks he might actually be whimpering.

“Don’t say ‘I told you so’, Barton. Do not.” Tony mumbles pathetically.

“C’mon, Tony, we’ve got a set to build.” Clint prods, poking a finger into Tony’s side.

“You do it. I’m sad and Pepper hates me.” Tony flips over, and pouts at Clint.

“Any ideas, Coulson?” Clint asks Phil.

“Pizza?” Phil answers, because hey, they’re all students, and pizza always fixes everything.

The large grin on Clint’s face and the creeping smile on Tony’s assures him that that was the correct answer.

Phil makes the phone call for delivery pizza(large, sausage and pepperoni), as Tony and Clint wander back in the direction of the metal shop. When he returns to find them, they are welding behind bright yellow screens again, but there is a cut list waiting for him in Clint’s messy handwriting, an arrow pointing to the metal chop saw, and a gigantic “THANK YOU” sharpied on in block letters. Despite himself, Phil smiles when he sees it.

Phil cuts steel, the muffled sound of the saw grinding into his protective ear muffs, and he relaxes into the monotony of the work. Measure twice, cut once, measure twice, cut once, and it feels good to work with his hands again. His calluses have shifted to all the wrong places in the intervening years between the Army and now, and he relishes the thought that he might regain a few of them. When the pizza arrives, he calls out to Tony and Clint, and they sit companionably on a cleared worktable.

“I think we might actually finish this set on time.” Clint says, and if any sort of emotion can be inferred with half a slice of pizza crammed into his mouth, it is probably relief.

“Next show, I’ll design a...less complex set.” Tony offers.

“I don’t believe that for one second, Stark.” Clint responds, having somehow managed to start on a second slice of pizza in the time Tony took to utter his sentence.

“So, what do you think, Phil?” Tony says, poking Phil in the shoulder.

“About...what?” Phil asks.

“The shop. Us. The theatre.” Clint says.

Phil considers it. He likes the place. He likes Steve and Tony and Clint and Natasha.  He hasn’t really met Pepper, but he definitely respects her. Most of all though, he feels...useful, like he’s contributing to something worthwhile. He’s been in a world of words and books and research for so many years, he’d almost forgotten what it was like to hear the sound of metal against metal, the soot and sparks filling his nostrils and stinging his skin. He looks down at Clint, who is now lying across the table, head propped up with one arm. Clint’s face is open and inviting, a small smile on his lips, his hair flattened and messy. Phil gets a little bit lost in those blue-grey eyes, before he wrenches himself away, mostly because Tony Stark is there too, and Tony’s eyes are not blue, trained on him, and still waiting for an answer.

“I like it here.” Phil finally says. “Thanks for letting me help.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clarify some of the ages, which might be confusing... 
> 
> 1\. Phil is 34. He spent 8 years in the army after high school, and has been a student for another 8 years. He has an undergraduate(History and Political Science) and a masters degree(History) by now. 
> 
> 2\. Steve is also 34. He also spent about 8 years in the Army, finally receiving a honorable discharge due to his injuries as a POW. He majored in Technical Theatre, worked in the scene shop on work-study hours, and was hired as staff after graduating.
> 
> 3\. Tony Stark is 25. He graduated at 18, and then started a master's program in Scenic Design in the Theatre department. He hasn't left yet, although he has presumably completed the program by now, and no one really knows what to do with him.
> 
> 4\. Pepper is 23. She is a graduate student in Stage Management.
> 
> 5\. Clint is 24. He is a bit older than other senior undergraduates, but it is possible that he had a less than traditional path to college. 
> 
> 6\. Natasha is 21. She is a junior. 
> 
> And more notes about the shop...
> 
> 1\. Many college scene shops have metal fabrication ability, but may not have a corresponding course where students learn to weld. This is one of them. Generally, a task such as welding would also not be handed off to someone who just says "I can weld," but Tony Stark is not the most responsible person.
> 
> 2\. Tech Week is the week where all technical elements, such as lights, set, live music(if relevant) and costumes are added to the production, and dress rehearsals are done. It is usually the most stressful week of a production. It is often called Hell Week. Currently, we are in the week prior, so the actors have begun to do full run-throughs of the show without stopping much for notes.


	3. Chapter 3

Phil stumbles into his classroom, as he does every Monday and Wednesday, far too early in the morning. Earlier in the semester, he’d tried to at least get a cup of coffee in before he’d start his lecture. But frankly, he didn’t think the equally sleepy students would notice the extra notes of grumpiness in his voice, so he’d stopped trying. Phil can’t help wondering if Clint Barton might actually show up for it; a quick glance at his class attendance records earlier has showed that Clint has only showed up for the required exams. Somehow, he has scored fairly highly on all of them anyway.

But, Clint is in the class today. He sits in the back row of the lecture hall, near the end, and doesn’t have textbooks or a notepad out. Clint buries himself in a hoodie, slouching in his seat, but he offers Phil a small wave and smile when Phil looks directly at him. More importantly, there is a paper cafeteria cup of coffee on his lectern, and he can see the steam rising from the small hole in the lid, which means that it is definitely still hot. There is a small pile of sugar and creamer packets next to the cup. Phil glances up at Clint, noticing that there is a matching cup on Clint’s desk, and a matching smirk on Clint’s face.

He puts two sugars and one creamer packet into his coffee, and begins his lecture, trying not to let his eyes rest on Clint. As a matter of fact, he is so successful at it that he doesn’t notice that Clint is actually paying attention, leaning forward in his seat, listening rapt to Phil’s lecture about colonial trade routes and the spread of infectious disease.

\---

“Can you help Nat and Steve today, Phil? I’m about to get accosted by lab students in a bit.” Clint says on Thursday morning, when Phil makes his way into the scene shop and reports for duty.

“I am a lab student too, y’know.” Phil says.

“Yeah, but you’re special.” Clint grins, and wow, that made Phil’s heart leap in a way it really shouldn’t have, considering that he’s past his thirties and definitely past the point where he ends up besotted over a young man with nice arms. Clint really just meant that Phil knew how to read a list of dimensions correctly, and not chop off his fingers in the process, Phil reminds himself.

“I’ll go help Natasha now.” Phil mutters, and escapes.

“I’ve never seen you in jeans, Prof, this is a little weird.” Natasha says.

“I'm not actually a professor. And, I didn't know you were a theatre minor, so I guess we're even." Phil answers. He really only owns one pair of jeans, and he’ll probably have to find another soon since this pair is quickly getting irrevocably dirty.

She smiles, and for several moments, she doesn’t look anything like the terrifyingly intelligent undergraduate that has terrorized the history department for three and a half years with feminist interpretations of Russian history. "I like it here, you know. I didn’t think I would, but I do."

“How did you end up here?” Phil asks, curious.

“Er. Clint Barton.” Natasha says, with a small shrug.

“Really.” Phil’s eyebrows raise unbidden.

“We sorta dated before college. I actually followed him to college. And then, I never saw him because he was in the scene shop all the time, and he convinced me to take a unit of Theatre Practicum so we could spend time together.” she repeats, tediously, like she’s told this story a few times before.

“Yeah?”

“And then we broke up, because he’s kinda slutty and I’m kinda commitment phobic and it was a bit of a mess. But it turns out I’m really good at backstage work, and I also like acting, so I stayed.” Natasha completes her very short story.

“Oh wow.” Phil says, hiding the disappointment at collecting the data point that Clint dates women.

“It’s the best thing that could have happened! We’re really good friends now.” Natasha assures him.

“That’s really great, Natasha.” Phil says, practicing his voice into a calm and composed monotone.

Natasha hands him an apron and a bucket, and they make their way over to the stage. Clint is shouting instructions to several students, and gives orders to two students that Natasha rolls her eyes at. “That’s Happy and Bucky. They’re such...boys.” she mutters.

Steve is holding court in the middle of the stage, surrounded by paint rollers, patiently explaining how to paint the floor. “It’s pretty self explanatory. Basically, don’t paint yourself into a corner, and don’t step in the paint.” Steve says. “Hey Nat, can you run this? One coat of flat black, and then it needs several coats of gloss. As shiny as we can make it.”

“Got it, sir.” Natasha sharply salutes, and Phil wonders if she knows about Steve’s history. She must, he assumes; not much tends to escape her. Natasha sets him to work, and he finds himself and two other students walking back and forth across the stage in steady lines with a paint roller. Slowly, around and behind him, walls are propped up and screwed in place, and even though this set seems deceptively simple, Phil feels an odd pride in knowing he’d helped build some of it. Clint’s laughter rings out into the background, interspersed with the voices of other students, and Phil firmly pushes all thoughts that it conjures up out of his head. He’s not a teenager. He is a responsible adult that has a thesis to present in several weeks, and he will not be distracted. And besides, Clint dates women.

But somehow, that evening, after his office hours back in the History department building, Phil finds himself making his way back into the scene shop.

Steve is standing before a wide canvas hung on a large frame on the wall, humming softly. He smiles when he sees Phil, and winches the frame up. “It’s the background drop for the last scene. Usually, I’d let the students paint it, but I haven’t painted in a while, and I’m feeling a bit selfish.” Phil stares at the canvas. It is rendered in vibrant shades of red and gold, all swirls and confident brushstrokes. Phil is awed. “I didn’t know you painted,” he says.

“You didn’t know me as anything but a soldier.” Steve responds.

“We’re always more than just soldiers.” Phil says, because that’s what he’s spent the eight years trying not to be. And he thinks that Steve, in his jeans and long sleeved workshirts, surrounded by students and scenic elevations and gorgeous painted drops, is trying to do much the same. Steve is silent next to him, his eyes deep and haunted, and Phil hopes that he hasn’t transgressed.

“If you were looking for Clint, he’s in the theatre focusing lights with Thor.” Steve says, picking up his brush again.

“I wasn’t looking for Clint.” Phil says, but Steve is already shooing him away.

\---

Thor, it turns out, is a large Norwegian boulder of a graduate student, with an obsession for lighting design, the more complicated the better. The stage is empty, except for a short, stout man standing near the middle of the stage on a milk crate. It is dark, except for two lights pointed roughly at the stage.

“Mr. Barton, focus on Hogun and sharpen it,” Thor says, standing in the audience seats, and a beam of light swivels to point at the short man, and focuses until the edges of the beam are sharp. “Wonderful. Sif, do the same,” and another light follows. Phil squints up to the light sources, and spots the dark shape of Clint, and a girl - Sif, he presumes - leaning over a metal railing. It is a tangle of metal and cables up there, all narrow metal corridors and pipes.

“Phil! Hi!” Clint yells, from up high, “Hey, hey, hey - wanna help us out? Hogun’s been standing in for three hours, and he could use a break.”

“Also, he is much too short!” Sif exclaims, drawing a growl out of Hogun.

“You are Philip?” Thor asks, “Steve has mentioned you.”

“Oh, um, yes. I can help?”

“Fantastic. Just stand!” Thor says, loudly.

“Just stand?” Phil repeats, unsure of what exactly that means.

“Stand where Thor tells you to!” Clint shouts, from twenty feet above.

So, this is how Phil spends hours shuffling across the stage, following Thor’s booming directions. Hogun returns after a few minutes, and joins him, still grumbling about having to stand on a crate. Clint and Sif are on what Phil quickly learns is called “the catwalk,” although Clint says that it is a misnomer. “It’s so dark. No one can see me strut my stuff up here,” he complains. Phil learns that this process is the lighting focus, and he is standing in for the actors in the production, so that Thor and his lighting crew can accurately predict what the light should hit.

It takes Phil about thirty minutes to start to really distinguish “left” from “stage left,” but he soon begins to decipher Thor’s directions.

“Heads up!” Clint calls, and Phil snaps his head up to see something thud down by his feet, having fallen from the catwalk right above him.

“Must you drop your wrench so often?” Thor admonishes in the general direction of Clint, but Phil can see that the object is not a crescent wrench, but half of a candy bar. He holds it up quizzically, squinting up into the light pointed at him.

“Eat it!” Clint yells back down, so Phil does. It is chocolate and peanuts, and it is delicious.

During the course of the evening, Phil gets a crash course in stage lighting. Gobo, leko, gel, fresnel - which is pronounced fruh-nell, not how it is spelled - and that is a lamp, not a light bulb. The words jumble together and don’t make a lot of sense yet, but Phil files it all away anyway. He is admittedly out of his element - oh, he is so far out of his element - but he doesn’t feel quite as adrift and overwhelmed as he’d anticipated.

No one but Thor talks much, because Thor is very loud, and no one can really match the sonic resonance of his voice. Finally, Thor calls it a night - “Well met, my friends! The night is long, but we are victorious!”

"We haven't focused anything over the stage yet!" Clint responds, sounding a bit impatient.

"I thank you for your work, Mister Barton, but we must all sleep sometime!" Thor booms back.

Phil, who _is_ feeling pretty sleepy, decides he likes Thor a lot.

Sif and Hogun head out with Thor, and Phil swears that they are singing a classic Norse drinking song as they trample out of the building. Phil traces the dark lump of Clint, moving gracefully down the metal passageways as the other man makes his way down from the catwalk. Clint decides to skip the last few rungs of the ladder, and drops to the ground near Phil’s feet, slightly crouched.

“Where does Thor even find his lighting crew? They’re so weird.” Clint mumbles to himself.

“Is there anything you don’t do here?” Phil asks Clint, offering him a hand up. Clint takes it, and Phil tries to ignore how nice Clint’s strong, callused, grasp feels.

“Not really. I’m just that good,” Clint answers, and the grin he flashes Phil is wicked, and Phil forgets what his clever comeback to that was supposed to be.

Clint points to two crates filled with lighting cables, “Help?” he says, and Phil picks one up and follows Clint to the shop.

“Phil, really, you’re a lifesaver. I can’t believe we didn’t recruit you to the theatre earlier.” Clint sighs, nudging a door open and beckoning for the crate. He doesn’t seem to need an answer from Phil, so Phil just waits as Clint stacks the crates up neatly in the room full of lighting equipment. Phil’s not entirely certain why he’s waiting, awkwardly hovering there in the doorway, just outside of Clint’s space. He just knows that he doesn’t quite want to walk away yet. 

“Well, uh, I should go.” Phil starts, because he realizes that he’s been lingering in the shop for a few too many minutes.

“Yeah, me too. I have a morning class.” Clint says, yawning.

“Oh, now you’re starting to go to your morning classes.” Phil jokes, holding the door open for Clint. “My apartment’s past the dorms, so we’re headed the same way.” Phil says.

Clint freezes suddenly. “I don’t live in the dorms.”

“Really?” Phil asks. “Where do you live?”

“Um.” Clint says, and he looks surprisingly young and lost, standing out on the loading dock, lit only by a single, flickering, light.

“Clint, are you okay?” Phil presses.

“Yeah, yeah. Just - head out. I’ll see you Tuesday.” Clint mumbles, rubbing his neck roughly.

Usually, Phil would leave, but he feels a bit stubborn tonight, and something in him refuses to let this go. And there’s something about Clint, apparently, that makes him do things he otherwise wouldn’t.

“Seriously, are you okay?” Phil insists, his hand instinctively reaching out for Clint’s shoulder.

Clint is silent for a while. Then, he looks back at Phil, considering the other man slowly. ”I live here.” he says, finally. Phil furrows his brow at Clint, not quite understanding.

“I live here, and not in the metaphorical way that everyone else in the department talks about.” Clint opens the door again, waving Phil back in. “It’s easier to show you than to explain.”

Clint walks through a part of the theatre department Phil hasn’t seen before, and leads Phil down a flight of stairs, and then a corridor. There is a door at the end of it, and Phil walks in when it is pushed open. The room is filled with furniture and smells like mothballs and old wood.

“We’re under the stage. It’s used for storing large props we rarely use.” Clint says, pressing further into a labyrinth of old tables and plushly upholstered chairs. He leads Phil into a small nook, near the back, both men having to crouch over to fit in the low space.

“I sleep here.” Clint waves in the direction of a decorative chaise lounge, and Phil notices the cotton jersey sheets tossed over it, the backpack full of books, and the carry on sized luggage filled with clothing. Phil doesn’t really know what to say.

“I lost my scholarship last year.” Clint explains, but does not elaborate on that front. “It was my fault, but I can’t afford to live in the dorms anymore. I was couch surfing for a while, but - well, I just didn’t want anyone to know.” Clint says, sitting down hard on the chaise lounge that apparently serves as his bed. The space is claustrophobic and the air is musty and old.

“Does Steve know?” Phil asks, gently. Certainly, Steve wouldn’t let this happen.

“No one knows.” Clint says.

“Why did you tell me?” Phil blurts out, leaning closer to Clint to avoid hitting his head on the low ceiling.

Clint sighs. “I don’t know. Maybe you were just there at the right time. I’m tired, okay? Look, it’s no big deal. The theatre has locker rooms and showers. No one knows, and I’ll be out of here in a semester and a half. My GPA is shit, but I’m going to graduate.”

Phil looks at Clint, who is busy boring a hole into his shoes with his miserably downcast gaze. Clint looks impossibly sad, and Phil doesn’t know what to do, except the obvious.

“I have a couch.” Phil says, “You going to come over and sleep on it.” He phrases it as an order, not an invitation, his sergeant’s voice trained and refined by his years of military service.

“What?” Clint says, looking confused.

“Clint. You can’t even stand up straight in here. Come home with me, and let me give you a pillow and a blanket and make you crash on my couch. If you hate it, you can move back into - er, this hole under the stage - but we’re both exhausted and I don’t want to argue with you, so just follow me.” Phil orders.

He thinks that Clint is going to argue, or insist that everything is fine, even when it’s so clearly not fine, but instead, Clint just looks like the wind’s been kicked out of him. His shoulders slump, and Phil isn’t sure if he looks younger, like a lost kid, or much older, like someone who’s been carrying far too much weight on their shoulders.

“My couch really is ridiculously comfortable.” Phil adds.

“Yeah, sure.” Clint says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The paint frame that Steve is working on looks much [like this](http://www.theatre.kent.edu/General%20Info/SceneShop.html). Stage flats or drops can be attached to it, and there is a motor that raises or lowers the frame for ease of painting.
> 
> 2\. Thor, Clint and his crew are hanging and focusing lights. Here are some pictures of a theatre's catwalk - [here](http://www.indiana.edu/~thtr/facilities/ruthCatwalks.shtml), [here](http://www.austinchronicle.com/photos/topfer-theatre-zach-scott/6/), and [here](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/amazongirl1/media/Circle%20Theatre/Catwalk01.jpg.html).


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for descriptions of an anxiety disorder, if that sort of thing tends to make you anxious.

Clint is already gone when Phil wakes up, no trace of him left besides the neatly folded blanket sitting on top of a pillow. It had been two in the morning when they had stumbled in - Phil hadn’t noticed how long they’d worked - and they hadn’t spoken on the walk home. Phil had handed Clint a blanket and pillow, and Clint had promptly passed out on the couch, fully dressed. Not wanting to try to convince Clint to at least get into pajamas, Phil had gone to bed, and fallen asleep just as quickly.

Phil sighs. He considers going down to the theatre department, but he’s spent almost as much time there this week as he has on his actual area of study. And he has a dissertation to try and format correctly, and a gigantic pile of exams to grade. Phil sinks back into his couch with his laptop - perhaps today he can get some work done in peace. Phil looks back at the sheaves of paper and piles of books in his living room, and sinks back into them. Oddly enough, he thinks, breathing in the quiet of his apartment, he already misses the sounds of the scene shop, filled with saws and laughter. He considers Clint, and realizes that his initial starry eyed crush has completely evaporated, to be replaced by just concern and a need to - well, Phil doesn’t really know what exactly it is yet, so he compartmentalizes the thought away.

Still, it is a surprise when hours later, when Phil is busy trying to coalesce some thoughts about the role of the museum in colonial history into something concise, there is a knock on his door. It opens to reveal Clint, holding two cups of coffee, one of which is handed to Phil.

“You didn’t come by the shop today,” Clint says casually, but there’s a catch in his voice.

Phil takes a sip of the coffee. It is exactly right. “Er, how did you know how I took my coffee?”

“Because you made your coffee in front of your entire class. Duh.” Clint shrugs, and Phil thinks he detects an eye roll as well.

“Thanks for that, by the way.” Phil smiles, slurping at the coffee a little more enthusiastically than he'd expected. “You know I’m not a theatre major, right?”

“Yeah.” Clint says. “But - you’re useful.” He shrugs, nonchalantly. ”I spent all day helping Thor with lights and writing cues. And, we’re done with the set build for this show, and then we take it slow in the shop during tech week because everyone’s running around like they’re gonna die, and then we start up again when the show opens.”

Phil nods, because it sounds like Clint is talking at him, not to him, and besides, he’s not really sure what to say. Clint throws himself down on the couch, burying his head into the pillows.

“Oh man, I slept so well last night” Clint mumbles, hugging a large pillow. It is a particularly comfortable one, Phil had made sure of it.

In response to that, Phil tosses a shiny object at Clint.

“What’s this?” Clint asks, catching it out of the air.

“Exactly what it looks like. A spare key.”

“Dude, you’ve known me for like three days.” Clint says, his attention fixed incredulously on the key.

“It’s just a couch, Clint. It’s not like I’m putting your name on the lease.” Phil sighs.

Clint’s smile is hesitant, but when it is finished growing on his gorgeous face, it fills the room with hope.

They spend the rest of the evening on the couch together, Clint buried in some statistics homework, and Phil continuing to stress over his thesis, taking short breaks to grade midterm exams. He definitely pauses when he comes to Clint’s. He glances over the written answers, quickly noting a few spelling errors and grammatical misconstructions. He considers it again, and then sets it aside. “Hey, Clint?” Phil says, watching Clint raise his head and look at him quizzically. “I’m going to have my office mate grade your work for my class. Just so there’s no conflict of interest or anything.“

Clint grins back. “Sure. Theatre Practicum is pass/fail, and everyone who shows up and doesn’t accidentally kill an actor passes. I don’t think there’s a conflict of interest on my end.”

“I’ll try not to accidentally kill anyone.” Phil says wryly, turning back to his work.

The strange thing about having Clint Barton around in his apartment, Phil thinks, is that Clint notices things. Like, Clint notices that Phil hasn’t actually eaten all day, and magically, an omelette appears on top of his book pile. He hadn’t even noticed Clint moving around in the kitchen.

“I hope you like breakfast for dinner. Brinner. I was going to ask what you wanted, but you looked riveted to whatever that is.” Clint says.

“An essay about Indo-Chinese pottery.”

“Oh.” Clint says, trying to repress a laugh. “That sounds...delightful.”

Phil can’t help laughing along as he tucks into the omelette. “I love brinner.” he says, and he does, because the omelette is perfect, and the happy smile on Clint’s face is unbearably right.

“Um. Where did the eggs come from?” Phil asks, because he has a pretty good idea of his kitchen inventory, and fresh eggs are not on the list.

“A chicken, but that is a causality dilemma.” Clint says.

They don’t really spend the weekend together, because Clint has been drafted to help Thor out with finalizing the lights for the show. “I’m the only one that doesn’t mind hanging out on a Genie lift to hang and focus lights in all the stupid places he puts them.” Clint explains. Phil feels like he’s really developing some self restraint, because despite Clint’s invitations, he remains at his apartment, chugging away on his dissertation and class prep. Treatises on the cultural theft of Indo-Chinese pottery certainly pale to the buzzing energy of the Theatre department, but Phil is pursuing a doctorate in History, not in cutting wood for irrepressibly charming kids.

\---

On Sunday evening, Phil's steadfast focus on his dissertation is interrupted by a hurricane that looks like Clint bursting through his front door.

"Dude, you need to give me your number, so I don't have to run back to get you."

"Get me for what?" Phil mutters from his desk, instinctively scribbling his cell phone number on one of his business cards.

"Did you just hand me....a business card?" Clint asks, narrowing his eyes at the card.

"Sorry, I guess that was a bit weird." Phil says, taking stock of his living room. Over the weekend, it has exploded in a mess of papers and books, piles haphazardly stacked across his desk and coffee table.

"Never mind. Impromptu pizza party down at the shop. Wanna come?"

Phil looks at his books. Phil looks at his bibliography, which is still a mess. Phil looks at his laptop, a cursor blinking accusingly at the end of an unfinished sentence. And then, there's Clint, bouncing on the balls of his feet, waiting for an answer. Clint, who has apparently run three quarters of a mile to invite Phil to a pizza party, at a scene shop that Phil has barely started working in, but already starting to fit over his skin like a second home.

Phil sighs and closes his laptop. "Let's go." he says, and the reward of Clint's smile makes it worth it.

The party is small, but noisy, and Natasha starts talking at him about Bertolt Brecht and Marxism, and Steve hands him two slices of pizza and a cold soda. Phil finds himself drawn into the frenetic energy buzzing about him. Clint is quickly drawn away to discuss something mechanical with Tony in the metal shop, but his space is quickly filled by Pepper Potts, who is effervescent and charming and disgruntled all at the same time.

“My assistant stage manager is afraid of the dark!” Pepper exclaims, throwing her hands up in the air. “How did I end up with a crew like this?”

“Volstagg on my lighting crew is afraid of heights. If not for Mister Barton, I would never have gotten my lights hung!” Thor agrees heartily.

The party is loud and cheerful, and Phil finds himself inching away from the crowd, quietly sneaking out to sit on the edge of the loading dock. The stories being traded inside are hilarious and fascinating, and he realizes that he has none to offer in return. The night air is brisk and cool, and the muted laughter in the shop is a discordant soundtrack to his own thoughts. His life, the life he has actively chosen for eight years, is a life of words and grading and coffee and dissertations and bibliographies. He dangles his legs over the loading dock. He has no idea what he’s doing here.

The door opens behind him, and Phil turns to hear Pepper Potts' distinctive heels.

"Sorry, I'm being antisocial." Phil says. He just feels old, surrounded by the youth and vigor of the scene shop's standard roster of inhabitants.

"I'm sorry you had to see me fight with Tony your first week here. We made up. It’s a cycle." Pepper says, settling down beside him on the dock.

"Oh, it's not a problem." Phil says, unsure of how to respond to the apology.

"I can't talk you into getting recruited for stage management, can I? No, I think I have to get in line behind Steve." Pepper starts.

"I have no idea how I ended up here." Phil admits. "Last week, i was just trying desperately to finish my dissertation."

"I was in pre-law. And then I met Tony Stark." Pepper says, as if that explains her path to theatre, which it kind of does. Well, as well as it explains anyone’s path to theatre, Phil supposes.

Then, because everything is starting to feel pretty good again, everything falls apart.

“Don’t you have any friends, Phil?” Tony asks, sticking his head out of the door. “You’re here all the time and you’re not even a theatre person.”

Phil goes pale. _Does_ he have any friends? The truth is - well, not really. Not really. There’s Maria, whom he shares an office with. They talk a lot, but they don’t really hang out much outside of their office hourse. There’s Jasper, from the Poli Sci department, that he has coffee with sometimes. But, he hasn’t really made much of an effort to...well, actually make friends. He doesn't socialize much. He’s been busy. He’s older than most of the students here. He’s a bit uptight, his posture too straight from his military years, his sense of humour too wry, and sometimes too morbid. So, no, he doesn’t really have friends. But he’d thought - he’d thought Clint, and Natasha, and Steve, and even Tony - they were starting to be friends, perhaps? Maybe?

“Um, sure?” Phil says, but he is clearly off balance, and he knows it.

“Dude, don’t be a dick, Stark. Phil’s a theatre kid. He likes musicals. And he’s been building your stupid set, so he’s a theatre kid.” Clint says, stepping outside, his voice irritated and sharp.

“Hey, I gotta go. I forgot that I had a bunch of class papers to grade tonight,” Phil says, because he does. He probably does. He does. He has a lot of work to do, and none of it is here at the Theatre department, at an impromptu pizza party, with people, so many young people, laughing and talking and talking and talking. He has so much work to do, and he needs to leave now. Now. Now.

Phil jumps off the loading dock, and walks steadily across the parking lot, but once he is out of sight of the theatre building, he breaks out into a run.

\---

Phil's heart is pounding by the time he arrives at his apartment, slamming the door behind himself, partially because he’d just run three quarters of a mile, and mostly because he can’t breathe. He stumbles to the bathroom, panting and blurry, roughly searching for the small prescription bottle he knows is in there, pushed back behind the Band Aids and Tylenol, left untouched for months upon months by now. He is barely able to get it open when he finds it. His hands are trembling, and feel like gigantic sausages, unable to recall any of their former dexterity. He fumbles the bottle. When he manages to portion out two pills, the tightness in his throat makes swallowing difficult. He forces them down anyway, splashing the tap water over himself because he's not entirely sure what his hands are doing anymore.

He'd been doing so well. He'd been doing so well. He'd been doing so well, so in control, so much better. He rolls the prescription bottle in his hands, glaring at the date on it, a year old by now. He'd been doing so well, and now he's gone and screwed it all up again. He throws the bottle into the toilet in frustration and disappointment and anger, but it won't flush. It just sits there, mocking his failure, bobbing in the water like a pathetic buoy, a crutch, a persistent weakness.

Phil crawls into his bathtub, wrapping himself around a pile of laundry that had fallen in there. The room is small, and the walls feel like they're closing in. His eyes burn, and he knows that he is crying, snivelling like a child. His heart pounds in his ears, the rhythm uncertain and loud and overwhelming. Logically, Phil knows that he is just having a panic attack, and it will fade, but this is not a time for logic, and Phil just wants to hide forever. He hears his door open and close, the creaking a painful intrusion into his head. He knows that it is Clint, because no one else has a key to his place, but he doesn’t want Clint here right now, seeing him weak and undone.

"Phil. Phil? Are you okay?" Clint’s voice drifts in, worried and uncertain.

Go away, please just go away, Phil wants to scream. "I need a moment. Just give me a moment." Phil mumbles, instead.

"Take your time. I'm just going to talk to you, okay? I'm here, right outside."

Leave me the fuck alone, Phil wants to say. Get the fuck out of my house, leave me be, Phil wants to yell, until he is breathless and empty.

"Okay." Phil says, and the word surprises him.

Clint talks, but Phil doesn't hear any words. He does hear Clint's voice, steady and calm. It repeats, it rings in his head, it rubs into his skin, it invades, and slowly, it pulls him back. He can feel his hands, which are cold and clammy, but he can feel them. The monotone of Clint’s voice washes over him, and slowly, carefully, he comes back down to himself.

"Clint." Phil says, sitting up in his tub, feeling his heart rate subside. It is still beating fast, and the pounding still echoes in his ears, but he can think again. And what his jumbled brain can somehow still focus on is that there is a man outside his door, who is trying to take care of him. _Clint_ is trying to take care of him.

"Are you okay, Phil?" Clint asks again, gently.

"Are you reading from my dissertation?" Phil recognizes the words now, familiar and gravelly in Clint's throat.

"Yes. It's really good, but I think I picked up a random page, so I'm not sure what's going on." Clint admits.

“Are you okay enough to come out?" Steve says. Phil blinks when he hears it. There are _two_ people on the other side of the door, trying to take care of him.

"Sorry, he wouldn't let me come here without him." Clint apologizes.

Phil sheepishly shuffles out. He looks like a wreck, he's certain of it - red eyed, tear stained and rumpled. But Steve just squeezes his shoulder and leads him to the living room. Clint just smiles softly, his face relieved.

"Sorry. I just - too many people. I just...got antsy." Phil tries to explain awkwardly.

"Tony Stark is an asshole, just so we're all clear." Clint calls out from the kitchen.

"Look, you don't have to talk about it. But I understand." Steve says, patting the spot on the couch next to him. Phil sits down. Clint wanders over with three shot glasses filled with what Phil assumes is cheap whiskey, because that's what he'd last had in his cupboards.

Phil takes the proffered shot glass and sips at it a little; the liquid burns his throat and lips and makes him cringe. "Thanks, but I just had some Xanax." Phil says, handing it back. Clint raises an eyebrow and Phil sinks back into the couch cushions, considering what he'd just admitted to. Not that it wasn't already obvious, he thinks wryly - most mentally stable people don’t lock themselves in bathrooms to begin with. But Clint just adds himself to the couch, bumping his arm up against Phil's side.

"Do you know why I left the military, Phil?" Steve says, observing his own shot glass suspiciously.

"You were honorably discharged after sustaining major injuries as a POW." Phil answers, which is a fact he knows.

"Well, yes. Sort of." Steve downs the shot, grimacing. "I became a conscientious objector, actually."

"Oh." Phil says, as Clint hands Steve another shot.

"After I returned - after your team got me out of there - it felt like the world had changed. I didn't want to fight anymore. I was done with it all. I wanted to do good some other way - to create, instead of destroy." Steve continues.

"I didn't know that." Phil says. He really didn’t. In retrospect, it had seemed a little odd that a decorated veteran like Captain Rogers would have dropped off the radar so soon after being discharged. Usually there were more ceremonies, and more speeches, and a book deal or two.  

"Not many people do. Lots of people were pissed at me. I was supposed to be the poster boy for the war, for the military, for my country. My men were angry with me. I could have dealt with the upper brass being upset, but my men - we’d fought together. We’d lost several. They felt betrayed. That I had betrayed them. I got a  honorable discharge, and a somewhat embarrassing amount of money, in return for agreeing not to end up being the headliner at anti war protests." Steve hands the empty glass back to Clint. "Anyway, what I am trying to say, is that when I left the military, I didn't have anyone. Everyone, all my old friends, they'd moved on - got married, started families - they were all different people from what I'd known. And the people that I'd given the past eight years of my life to, the people I would have died for, the people I almost actually died for - now, they wanted nothing to do with me."

"Steve's story has a happy ending, I promise. I didn't bring him over just to be a downer." Clint interjects, handing Steve the remaining shot glass.

“What I’m _trying_ to say is that I found a new family. And they’re all a bit odd, but I think this family’s gonna stick around.” Steve says, pausing a little. “Also, I’ve had a weekly therapy appointment for eight years.”

Phil nods. "I feel really dumb now," he says, rubbing at his eyes. "I'm...I'm just kind of socially awkward."

“Things don’t just magically get better through sheer force of will.” Steve says, lightly punching Phil’s arm.

"We all have moments," Clint says, his shoulder warm and firm against Phil's. "Wanna watch Dog Cops?"

\---

Phil wakes up to a warm hand carding through his hair, and the smell of sweat and sawdust, and the feel of soft cotton in his face. He stiffens suddenly, realizing that he’s still on the couch, partially curled up in Clint’s lap.

“Dude, don’t freak out. You fell asleep on me. It’s two in the morning.” Clint says, softly, his hand still in Phil’s hair. Phil rolls over to blink at Clint sleepily. “Steve left at midnight. I didn’t want to wake you.” Clint continues.

It takes Phil a while to process the situation, and then he does, and bolts upright, scrambling to the other side of the couch.

“Whoa, dude. Don’t take it the wrong way, I’m not gay or anything.” Clint says, his hands up in cautious surrender.

“No - no, that’s not it. Well, that _is_ it, actually. I’m sorry I fell asleep on you. I mean, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” Phil stammers, his head still a bit uncentered.

“I’m not uncomfortable. I was actually _very_ comfortable.” Clint says. Then, the meaning of Phil’s words hit, and he laughs. “Oh my god, Phil, you are such a doofus.”

And then, Clint yanks Phil over into a tight hug, which alarms Phil a little, because Clint is now practically on top of him - wait, skip _practically_ \- Clint _is_ on top of him, his strong arms around Phil’s waist, and his head resting heavily on Phil’s chest.

“I can’t believe you thought I’d be uncomfortable because you’re gay. You are, right? Seriously dude, I don’t care.” Clint exclaims, still hugging Phil.

“Uh, okay.” Phil says, because Clint is definitely hovering over him now, and Clint’s face is a bit too unbearably close for Phil to not turn an extremely bright crimson. And the look in Clint’s face, - open, thoughtful, considerate, kind - makes his heart ache even more.

And then Clint kisses him, which is extremely confusing, because _hadn’t he just said_ \- but Clint is all soft lips, and rough bits of stubble, and he tastes like pizza and soda and chapstick and sawdust. Phil tries not to kiss back, he really does, but Clint is warm and pressing against him so gently, so cautiously, and he wants this, wants it so much, even though every single instinct of his is blaring an emergency alarm. With extremely loud sirens. 

“You know, for someone that just told me he wasn’t gay, you are sending very mixed messages.” Phil manages to blurt out, pulling away a little less abruptly than he’d meant to.

“I’m sorry.” Clint says, touching his fingers to his own lips. He looks a little shocked.

“You don’t have to be sorry. But I am really, really confused. Are you drunk?”

“No, I haven’t had a drop to drink. Steve drank all three shots. He walked home and he texted me when he got there, he’s fine.” Clint mutters, now averting eye contact, although he hasn’t budged from his position yet.

“Steve is really not my top concern right now.” Phil says. “And if you want to talk about this, you might want to move.” Because, certain parts of Clint are pressing into Phil’s thigh, and Phil isn’t so confused by the situation that his body has forgotten to react to the presence of a gorgeous man straddling him.

Fortunately, Clint immediately scrambles up to a standing position. “Oh god, I’m so sorry. Okay, let’s just forget I did that.“

“Okay.” Phil says, because really, what else is he supposed to say?

“We’re okay?”

“Yes, we’re fine.” Phil says, peeling himself off the couch and walking to the kitchen as calmly as he can manage. He makes two cups of tea, taking the time to put the kettle on the stove instead of microwaving the water, grateful for the extra minutes it affords him to get his scrambled thoughts together.

He hands a cup of tea to Clint, who sips at it suspiciously.

“Chamomile. It’s late, and I don’t know if you need sleep, but I do.” Phil says when Clint wrinkles his nose at the warm cup.

“What are you doing on Thursday?” Clint says, hesitantly.

Phil laughs, partially because the shyness in Clint’s voice is completely unanticipated. “Clint. Really? In the past fifteen minutes, I’ve woken up cuddled up on you, then you assured me you weren’t gay , then you kissed me, then you told me to forget about it, and now - are you asking me out?”

Clint, bless his soul, actually looks hurt. “It’s the third dress rehearsal for _A Chorus Line_. Invited dress - the scene shop crew usually goes to watch it.”

“So, you’re not asking me out.” Phil insists on clarifying.

“I’m not _not_ asking you out.“

“You understand why I’m confused, right?” Phil grumbles. 

“Look, I am too.” Clint swallows, and for a moment, Phil thinks he’s actually going to get an explanation. But instead, Clint just fixes his stare on Phil’s eyes, and does not look away. “Do you want to come with me to watch the show we’ve been working on? On Thursday evening, at 6?” Clint repeats.

Phil sighs. “Yes. I do.” he says, but he goes into his bedroom and shuts the door behind him before Clint can try to say anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. A Genie lift(that Clint mentions being on) is something that looks like [this](http://www.controlbooth.com/attachments/stage-management-facility-operations/7764d1348081887-changing-house-lights-awp-super-straddle1530-.jpg). The catwalk, mentioned in the previous chapter, is where most stage lights are hung, and lights are also hung on the [electrics](http://stagehandcentral.com/rail-electrics/), which are metal pipes above the stage. However, some lights are just out of reach, and a Genie lift is sometimes required. The lift is also used to focus lights that have already been hung on the electrics(the pipes are on the [fly rail](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_system) and can be lowered, but after you've focused a few, you don't want to constantly bring them up and down). As far as stage equipment that is hard to feel really comfortable in, I'd rank Genie lifts reasonably high on the list. And that was a long ass footnote to explain a throwaway sentence! Sorry! 
> 
> 2\. While we're explaining throwaway sentences...Pepper mentions her "assistant stage manager." This is essentially a 'miscellaneous' role, and assistant stage managers(ASMs) do everything from managing the backstage crew to sweeping the stage floor at intermission.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a short chapter, but it is fluffy as all hell, to make up for the angst in the past chapter, and in the coming ones. Also, blah, blah, I'm on [Tumblr](http://dustjane.tumblr.com/), and I sketched out what Clint+Phil look like in my head in this AU...here.
> 
>   
> 
> 
> (I love Renner, but after reading the new Hawkeye comic, I imagine him so much...blonder.)

 Clint is not in the apartment when Phil wakes up, but his backpack is parked under the coffee table, so Phil considers that he probably didn’t actually screw everything up last night. In the kitchen, the coffee is brewed, and there are two slices of untoasted bread in his toaster, with a note reading “EAT SOMETHING. - c.” Bread? Where did the bread appear from? In his fridge, there is a jar of strawberry jam and butter. Phil makes toast.

He wanders on over to the History department for his expected office hours. Maria is already there, scowling at a stack of student assignments, and he tries not to be too loud as he settles into his desk.

“Hey, Phil. Can we talk?” Maria asks.

“Uh huh.” Phil says, a bit distracted in his attempts to find the right pile of grading he needs to work on. Maria has “talks” with him frequently, and they are mostly complaints about history department bureaucracy.

“The kid you wanted me to take over grading for. Clint Barton.” she says, and Phil freezes.

“Er, yeah. What about him?” Phil says, trying to sound calm and detached and not at all personally invested in any direction that the conversation could go.

“Did you know he’s on academic probation?” Maria says. Oh, that is a bad direction, Phil thinks.

“What? No. He’s really smart - are you sure? He’s done well on all the tests in my class.” Phil attempts not to sound defensive on Clint’s behalf.

“Yeah, but his written midterm is a wreck. Your other exams have been multiple choice or short answer.” Maria points out, handing Clint’s midterm back to Phil. Phil glances at it, but he doesn’t have to read far to realize that Maria is right. Clint’s spelling is atrocious, his sentences disjointed and intent on committing several grammatical crimes.

“Anyway, he’s been on academic probation since last semester.” Maria says, and Phil remembers that Clint had mentioned losing a scholarship. “Do you think he might be dyslexic or something? I don’t doubt he understands the concepts you’re trying to teach, but...”

“I- I don’t know, Maria.” Phil admits. He considers how much he actually knows about Clint. It’s not much, all things considered. Clint is an extremely competent carpenter and stage electrician. Clint has really nice blue-grey eyes, and amazing arms. Clint sleeps on his couch. Clint knows how he takes his coffee. Clint talked him down from a panic attack. Clint is confused about his sexuality, and Phil actually feels pretty confident making that judgement considering their most recent interactions. Clint is caring, and kind, and brilliant, and beautiful, and none of it explains why Clint can’t write a legible sentence.

Maria pauses, glancing over the paper again.

“What is your relationship to Clint Barton?” Maria asks, pointedly.

“Er. He is my student supervisor for a credit of Theatre Practicum I’m taking.” Phil answers, steadying his voice.

“Is that so.” Maria sounds skeptical, which she is. Phil is thankful that at least she’s not raising her eyebrows at him, because that is a particularly terrifying look.

“Yes.” Phil responds firmly, rearranging books on his desk, as if that were exactly what he’d been intending to do.

Maria sighs. “You’re so close to being done, Phil. Don’t let some kid screw it up for you.”

Phil doesn’t know what to say, which has seemed to be a recurring pattern in the past few days, so he just nods at Maria and turns back to grading papers.

\---

Phil doesn’t actually see Clint until he reports for his shop hours on Thursday, although he knows that Clint is still sleeping on his couch, due to the quiet sounds of his front door being opened and closed late at night. And also, the hot coffee and reminders to eat breakfast being left for him every morning.

On Tuesday, Clint had been absent from the shop - “Thor is borrowing him for Hell Week so Clint's been practically living here,” Steve explained, although Phil hadn’t actually asked. Phil had spent the morning sorting screws alone, which was tedious, but strangely calming. He’d also completely reorganized the hardware drawers, because apparently no one else in the scene shop had been bothered by the fact that the nut drawers and the bolt drawers were separated by about five rows of hinges, handles, rigging hardware and too many drawers labelled ‘miscellaneous’.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Steve had said, upon looking at the reordered shelves, “Are you sure I can’t hire you?”

On Wednesday, he’d found a muffin on the counter next to his morning coffee. Banana nut. And a sandwich, in a paper bag, with a note saying “Please start eating lunch.  - c.” Phil had also opened his fridge to find out that apparently, despite barely being home, Clint had somehow found time to go grocery shopping again, and Phil now also had milk and fresh vegetables and sandwich fixings. The pre-Clint inhabitants of Phil’s fridge had been a jar of mayonnaise and a six pack of old soda. 

On Thursday, Phil walks into the shop, and is immediately greeted by Clint, who is grinning in an alarmingly mischievous way. “I have to talk to you about my class, Clint.” Phil says, before he forgets, or worse, avoids the issue entirely, because the last thing he wants to discuss with Clint is _grades_.

“Sure, but the very first thing you need to do today is go to Steve’s office.” Clint says, looking suspiciously excited.

“Er, okay.” Phil says, and heads to the technical director’s office.

“Hey, Phil.” Steve says, not looking up from his work. “Can you get me the vanishing points?”

“Er, sure?” Phil says, and wanders to the tool room. He’s not entirely sure what Steve is talking about, and he definitely isn't sure what a vanishing point is, but everything in the tool room is well labeled, and he figures he can probably find it.

He stands in the tool room for eight minutes, reading all the labels. Nuts. Bolts. Block and tackles. Eye bolts. No, not the hardware drawers, he'd just sorted those and knows what's in them. The large pegboard that holds the smaller tools does not help illuminate his problem. Roofing square. Chalk lines. Compass. Bow saw. No, not there either. 

Natasha sticks her head in, “Hey Phil, heed help?”

“Yeah, sure, where are the vanishing -” Phil pauses, the words rolling on his tongue, before the thought occurs to him, the awful realization slowly dawning. _Oh hell_.

Natasha is biting her lip now, barely containing her laughter. “Oh hell!“ he says out loud, and Natasha cracks up laughing.  She follows him back to Steve’s office, and Phil has never seen Natasha giggle before, but she is definitely engaged in that now,

When he opens the door to Steve’s office, Clint is there. As is Tony, and Pepper, and Thor, and Happy and Bucky, all crammed in the small space, and abruptly pausing their conversation. They turn to Phil slowly, pointedly trying not to smile. Phil leans casually against the doorway.

“I found your vanishing points.” Phil says calmly.

“Yeah?” Steve says, his face controlled into a barely serious expression.

“They’re on the horizon.” Phil responds, as flatly as he can, and the rest of the room breaks up into boisterous laughter, and Phil can’t help joining in.

Tony Stark pats him on the back when the noise finally subsides. “That’s the best comeback anyone has ever given Steve.”

“I took fifteen minutes to figure it out.” Natasha admits, wiping laughter induced tears from her eyes.

“I myself spent twenty glorious - and also baffling - minutes on that task!” Thor booms.

“I never figured it out. Steve took pity on me after the first hour.” Clint says.

“That’s the official scene shop initiation, by the way.” Pepper explains, “And, _I_ figured it out immediately.”

“No, you didn’t, you were just the only person who’d ever asked Steve what a vanishing point was before you left his office.” Tony points out.

“Well, _you_ told Steve that the shop didn’t seem to have any vanishing points in inventory, but you could probably build one.” Pepper retorts.

“Welcome to the family, Phil.” Steve says, “Officially. Okay, back to work, everyone.”

Phil’s new family - wait, what? family? - files out of the small office, high fiving(Tony, Happy, Bucky and Thor), hugging(Pepper, Natasha) or man-hugging(Steve, Clint) Phil on the way to their assigned jobs for the day. Phil can’t wipe the grin off his face. _Family_.

“I have to help Thor out today, so I’m loaning you to Natasha to do paint touch ups. Did you want to talk about your class?” Clint asks.

Phil considers it. “No, we can talk later.” This moment, right now, is too perfect to ruin with a conversation about grades.

“Okay. We’re still on for tonight, right? I’ll come get you at five thirty?” Clint asks, and Phil is a bit stunned because really? Clint actually meant to ask him out the other night?

“I’ll have office hours until five thirty.” Phil mutters, a bit warily.

“I’ll come by your office.” Clint says, firm and insistent.

“Alright.” Phil says, and everything really does feel like it will be alright.

\---

“Are you actually wearing a suit?” are the first words out of Phil’s mouth when Clint opens his office door, with only a brief knock as warning. He’d meant to say something like “Hello.” or “Hi.” or even “Hey.” but apparently his brain had completely short circuited at the sight of Clint in a light grey suit, matched with a dark purple shirt and silver tie. Jesus, there’s even a pocket square. The suit's vintage, but the cut fits Clint like a glove, skimming lightly around his arms.

Clint leans on the doorframe, his eyes sparkling. He obviously hasn’t shaved in a  couple days, and there’s still a trace of sawdust in his hair, and a light and incongruous streak of something dark and dirty on his cheek. The juxtaposition of the Clint that Phil knows - the competent and strong master carpenter - with the man wearing a gorgeous tailored suit, beautiful and graceful, is making Phil’s head spin and his throat dry.

“Oh my goodness, who is this gorgeous young man, Philip Coulson?” Maria asks, spinning around in her chair so fast, Phil thinks she might actually fall out of it. “How did you get this pretty thing here to see you?” she demands.

“Um. Maria, this is Clint. Clint, my office mate, Maria.” Phil stammers.

“Oh. _You’re_ Clint Barton.” Maria says, incredulously.

“Yep, and we have to go. See you later, Maria.” Phil exclaims quickly, herding Clint out of his office before Maria can shake herself out of her stunned silence.

“I was not planning on wearing a suit,” Clint explains on the walk over to the theatre. “I was at the shop all day, and I didn’t have time to change, so I asked Bruce down at the costume shop if I could borrow something clean. He said this was the only thing that would fit me, which is patently untrue, but he refused to let me sign anything else out.”

“Remind me to thank this Bruce.” Phil says, because at this point, flirting with a man that has both kissed you and asked you out seems fairly acceptable.

“I hope you don’t like it _too_ much.” Clint says, grinning wickedly.

“Why?” Phil says, because his brain is currently busy imagining the smooth cotton of Clint’s shirt and the soft twill of his suit under own hands, and cannot spare the time to articulate much more than monosyllables.

“Bruce doesn’t like it when we return clothing _dirty_. He gets angry.” Clint says, and _oh_ , so that’s how it’s going to be then, Phil thinks.

“Your tone makes me think that you’re going to kiss me again.” Phil says, brazenly, because what the hell, Clint is confusing and infuriating and _impossible_ , and Phil wants nothing more that to lick the smirk off Clint’s perfect face.

“I am.” Clint says, and he does.

The second time they kiss, standing on a sidewalk in the shadow of the Engineering building, two blocks from the Theatre department, Clint does not apologize for it at all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The "vanishing point" prank(the general concept of sending newbies out to find non existent objects is called a [snipe hunt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe_hunt)) - is based directly off my own professional and college scene shop experience as both the victim and instigator. Every time I'm at a large enough gathering of theatre folk, enough similar stories of theatre pranks get told, so it's probably pretty universal.
> 
> 2\. Making friends with the costume shop manager is the best way to ensure that you will always have an awesome Halloween costume, or in Clint's case, clean clothing.


	6. Chapter 6

Despite Clint’s wandering hands, they both manage to make it into the theatre’s lobby before the doors open. The crowd is small, and mostly people Clint knows, and they slot themselves into a conversation that Steve is having with Tony. Tony gesticulates, Steve says “no” a lot, and Clint’s shoulder is persistently brushing up against Phil’s, so Phil doesn’t pay much attention to whatever is actually being discussed.

It is Phil that first spots Pepper, who’s rushing out of a side door, looking frantic. She’s dressed from head to toe in black, her long sleeved shirt shoved up to her elbows. A wireless headset dangles around her neck, and several pencils are balanced precariously into her ponytail. Her eyes land on the small group, lighting up immediately when she sees them.

“Oh my god, Clint, I’m so glad you’re here.” Pepper exhales, running up to them.

“You’ve never been that excited to see me!” Clint grins. “Wait, what’s wrong?”

“Hogun was an idiot and went rock climbing and broke his arm. We’re down a followspot op.”

“Oh come on, _I_ can operate a followspot with one arm.”

“Well, yeah, _you_ can. He can’t, and he’s also on some major painkillers.” Pepper explains, her voice frustrated and her expression annoyed..

Pepper looks at Clint expectantly. Clint looks at Phil apologetically.

“What about Steve? Or Tony?” Clint tries, as Tony and Steve shrug.

“They’re just not good at it. It’s a really hard show for followspot.” Pepper insists.

“Hey!” Tony exclaims. Pepper ignores him and fixes the sort of stare on Clint that would melt lesser men into devoted goop.

Clint crinkles his face.

“Please, Clint? You’re the only person here that can do it without any practice. How much more flattery do you want?” Pepper begs.

“Fine. Can Phil come?” Clint finally gives in, but he has now wrapped his hand around Phil’s wrist.

“Sure, whatever, just please get on the catwalk now.” Pepper says, spinning around again in a hurry.

Pepper has already magically transported herself back to the cramped booth by the time Phil and Clint arrive on the catwalk(Clint had taken a small detour - “it’ll just take a minute” he’d said, pressed up against Phil’s lips in a dim stairwell, and Phil was feeling disinclined to responsibly discourage Clint’s from exploring). Sif is sitting next to Pepper, in front of a large lighting console and Bucky is at the sound board, already frowning in the direction of the small orchestra in front of the stage. And Pepper is scowling at Clint, pointing firmly at the second followspot. The first followspot, being piloted by a small girl Phil hasn’t seen before, is inside the small control booth, but Clint’s is set up right outside, on the catwalk itself.

“I should probably have considered that you might have wanted to watch the show before dragging you up here.” Clint apologizes, as Phil sits down on the catwalk’s hard metal grating,

“I don’t mind.” Phil says, dangling his feet over the edge. “I wanted to hang out with you” he says, and the smile that Clint returns him is one of the best things that Phil’s ever seen.

Clint hands Phil a headset too - “This way you can listen in on Pepper’s griping.” - and settles in behind his followspot as Pepper confirms that that show is about to start.

Pepper’s voice is sure and steady - “Standby Lights 15, 16 and 17. Standby followspot A on stage left. Standby spot B on stage right - that’s you, Clint, and I’ll talk you through the cues, and thank you so much. You’re aiming stage right, around the upstage wing, mirror spot A as well as you can.”

“Standing by.” Clint’s low voice answers, and the confident competence of it sends a shiver down Phil’s spine. But none of it compares to Clint’s actual skill with the gigantic light - “Lights 17 go. Spot A, B, go.” Pepper commands, and the two lights slide open, and glide languidly across the stage, without hesitation. Clint’s hands are steady, and smooth, and Phil marvels at his ability to innately predict the actors’ movements, spotlighting them with accurate grace. Clint is even better than the other followspot operator, Phil considers, and he doesn’t think that he’s being biased.

“Standby Lights 19. Spots A and B out. Clint, you are amazing, and I love you.” Pepper says.

“Aw, shucks, Pep. You’re never this nice to me when I’m actually on crew with you.” Clint jokes.

“Clint, shush. Lights 19 go.” Pepper says, but there’s a smile in her voice.

“Hey, I think I can see Tony and Steve cuddling in the audience.” Clint says, leaning over the rail.

“Warning lights 20 and 21, and silence please, Clint.” Pepper admonishes.

“Warned,” Sif says. “But was Tony not dating Pepper?”

“Tony _is_ dating Pepper. Standby lights 20 and 21, and guys, please shut up.” Pepper repeats, a bit crankier.  

“Standing by, but I am confused - why would Tony and Steve cuddle?” Sif says.

“Have you looked at Steve lately? I’d cuddle with Steve.” Clint says.

“Is this the meaning of the phrase ‘going gay?’ “ Sif questions, innocently.

Phil clears his throat and Clint shifts uncomfortably.

Pepper saves them. “Lights 20, go. All of you, please shut up. Lights 21, go. Clint, you don’t have a cue until the next song, so come in here and get Phil a pillow.”

Clint grins, wanders silently off to the booth, and returns with two large throw pillows. Phil gratefully moves onto one of them.

“Sorry, you must have grate marks all over your butt.” Clint apologizes, whispering into Phil’s ear, and Phil tries to repress his subconscious shiver.

“It’s okay.” Phil mumbles, and Clint sits down next to him.

“Thanks for coming up here with me. It’s nice to have the company.”

“You too. I mean, you’re welcome.” Phil says, dumbly, because Clint’s head has somehow made its way onto his shoulder, and he is certain that Pepper is staring at them. Still, he can’t help but feel disappointed when Pepper calls the standby for the next followspot cue, and Clint scrambles up to his feet to man the light.

Natasha is on stage now, according to Pepper, and the stage is dark.

“She’s about center stage, about two feet stage right. Do you think you can catch her, Clint?“ Pepper asks nervously.

“Of course.” Clint says.

“In that case, spot B, go.” Pepper says, and Clint opens his spotlight, and Natasha’s small figure is immediately illuminated. Clint tracks her across the stage as she sings, spinning around in a series of complicated pirouettes. Natasha is graceful and elegant and an exceptional dancer and singer, and Phil marvels at this side of her that he’s never seen before.

“How could you even see her?” Pepper asks Clint, impressed. “The stage was pitch black.”

“I’m just magic, Pepper.” Clint grins, still tracking Natasha’s movements with his light, and Phil thinks he agrees.

The show from this angle is perhaps even more interesting than from the audience. The constant stream of cues feeding into his headset from Pepper is a steady beat paired with the music below, and Phil is fascinated by it all. He is also fascinated by Clint, who has since unbuttoned his shirt, loosened his tie, and left his suit jacket casually draped over the catwalk’s metal railing, and who has his sleeves roughly rolled up to reveal his muscular forearms. He is fascinated with Clint’s legs, which are leaning up against his side, and Clint’s hands, one of which are currently in Phil’s hair, stroking a soft pattern.

Phil doesn’t quite know what’s gotten into him, but he leans his head up, and presses a kiss to Clint’s fingers. On stage, the left followspot shifts minutely, surprised.

\---

When the show draws to an ends, and Steve’s gorgeous painting is lowered to set off the final number, Phil can’t help but feel a bit disappointed.

“Pep, I’ll shut down up here - go see Tony.” Clint says.

“Really? You’re seriously the best, Clint. Even though you don’t shut up on headset.” Pepper chuckles.

The rest of the booth’s crew shuffles out, talking happily, and then Phil is alone on the catwalk with Clint, following him around a bit awkwardly as Clint picks his way across the coiled cables piled on the ground. Clint shuts down all of the booth’s equipment, and pushes his followspot back into the booth. Phil thinks that they’re going to head down now, to join Steve and Tony and Pepper and the rest on congratulating Natasha on a great final rehearsal, but Clint grabs his wrist, and pulls him back down onto the pillows.

Clint looks nervous.

“You wanted to talk to me about your class?” Clint asks.

“We can do it later. I’m having a really good night, you know?” Phil evades.

“No, I’d really like to get this over now. Is it about my papers?” Clint says, hunched over, his arms thrown over the steel railing.

“No, my officemate grades those. But - but she said you were on academic probation.”

“Oh. That. “ Clint swallows. “Yes, I am,” he confirms, nervously.

“What happened?” Phil presses.

Clint shrugs, and he looks young and lost. “Nothing happened. My GPA has always been awful, but I’m here on a sports scholarship, and the athletics department pulled some strings for a couple years to keep me.”

“Really? Which sport?” Phil wonders, because Clint isn’t built like a football player, or swimmer, or most of the sports he can think of, which isn’t a particularly extensive list.

“Archery.”

“We have an archery team?”

“Sort of. It’s been disbanded due to budget cuts. Basically, I had to take some time off the team to train for a competition, and between that and my GPA, they couldn’t justify the scholarship anymore.”

“What competition?” Phil asks, just to continue the conversation, because he’d rather talk about sports than Clint’s grades. Not that he knows anything about archery to be able to recognize some random archery competition.

Turns out he doesn’t have to, because what Clint says is - “Um. The Summer Olympics.”

Oh, that one, Phil thinks. He might have heard of _that_ little competition. “What, really?”

“Yeah. Individual gold. Team silver.” Clint says, wincing slightly.

“You are being very modest about this.” Phil says, because it really isn’t every day that you end up sitting in a theatre’s catwalk with an Olympic medalist who seems hesitant to admit it.

“It’s irrelevant.”

“I really don’t think it is.”

“I’m just a dumb kid who’s good with a bow and wood tools, Phil. I don’t even deserve to be in college with the likes of people like Natasha and Pepper. I mean, Tony graduated college at eighteen, and I’m still fumbling through it at twenty four. Natasha's been through so much shit in her life, but she works so hard and is good at everything. I’m not even supposed to be working in the shop while on academic probation, but Steve’s been going to bat for me. At some point though...“ Clint sighs.

“At some point?” Phil prompts, but he doesn’t really want to hear the expectedly self deprecating answer, because Clint is wonderful and good and talented and it’s ridiculous that he doesn’t know it.

“I’ve only gotten this far because of my friends. At some point, they’re going to realize I’m just not worth it.”

“You are worth it. I’ve only known you and your friends for a little while, but I have no doubt that they’d go to the ends of the earth for you.” Phil says, his hand immediately reaching for Clint’s.

Clint stares at it blankly, and then he grasps it tightly, holding on to it like a lifeline.

“I’m sorry. This was an awful date.” Clint mumbles, his head on Phil’s shoulder again. Phil decides that he quite likes having it there.

“So, _now_ it’s a date.” Phil jokes.

“Let me try again. Come with me to the wrap party for the show?”

“Yes, but I’m honestly having a bit trouble understanding why you keep on asking me out.” Phil says.

“Yes? You’ll come with me?” Clint lifts his head to look at Phil.

Phil sighs. Even though its dark, Phil can still see the hopeful sparkle slowly returning to Clint’s eyes. “Sure. Yes,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the short chapter! I hope to update this more frequently...the middle bits are always the hardest!
> 
> Further notes:
> 
> 1\. Clint is operating a followspot, which looks like [ this](http://www.eventindustrynewseurope.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Followspot-operator-Nils-Barnikol-Veit-at-the-controls-of-a-Robert-Juliat-Lancelot-4000W-followspot-on-Eurovision-2012-Credit-Ralph-Larmann.jpeg). It's probably the closest theatre equivalent for a sniper rifle. :)
> 
> 2\. Control booths are pretty self explanatory, but here's the [Wiki description](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_booth_\(theater\)).


	7. Chapter 7

It is alarming how quickly Clint becomes a fixture in Phil’s life. Suddenly, Phil finds himself eating home cooked meals - nothing fancy, and mostly sandwiches - but Clint also makes baked mac and cheese and complains about Phil’s oven being used to store dishes.

They haven’t moved past kissing, and cuddling up on the couch together, and Phil feels like he shouldn’t press Clint into anything, much less trying to pin down what exactly his sexual orientation actually is. And he has to admit, he’s afraid of what talking about what they have might bring - because this, this odd dance of shy smiles and slow kisses and hand holding, he’s thinks that he's alright with it if it means that Clint stays in his life’s orbit. But he cares - he definitely cares about Clint, and it’s making him a bit terrified to consider what exactly that means.

Clint still sleeps on the couch.

The days at the shop pass by slowly while the show is running. Clint works with Phil often, but Phil thinks that the moments he really loves aren't the ones where he’s working directly with Clint, and somehow still managing to stumble over sentences in his presence. No, the best moments are the ones where Phil is sitting with Pepper, helping her organize her work and watching Clint work alone on a project on the other end of the scene shop. Clint has the easy confidence of someone that knows exactly what he’s doing, and it is driving Phil insane. It’s the competence - Phil has always been attracted to unyielding competence, and here in the scene shop, Clint exudes it, moving like someone who irrevocably belongs there, any tool he picks up becoming an extension of his arms.

Clint knows exactly how much pressure he needs to exert on a screw to make it drive into the wood, with just enough countersink to lay flat, without splitting the lumber. Clint knows the exact dimensions of lumber by heart, knows that a 2 by 4 does not actually measure two inches by four inches, knows which drawer in the shop holds the ¾” hex nuts. Or he used to know, at least, because Phil has reorganized the hardware drawers, and they are far more logical now.

“You did all this?” Clint asks, marvelling at the new arrangement of boxes in the tool room.

“It didn’t make sense to have the nuts several drawers away from the bolts.” Phil explains, running his fingers over the aged, dark wood of the shelving. Steve had assigned the tool room reorganization project to him, after he’d rearranged a few drawers of his own accord. Now, everything was perfectly labelled, and arranged logically.

“You’re right, it makes more sense. Except now I keep on going for the bolt drawers where I think they are, and end up with a box of rigging pulleys.” Clint admits.`

“You’ll learn.” Phil shrugs.

“It’s just that I thought I knew where everything was, and how it should be. And then you come around and mess everything up. But it’s better now.” Clint says, and then pauses meaningfully. ”It’s like a metaphor.”

“A metaphor for what?” Phil asks, somewhat densely. As if Clint’s last few sentences weren’t the most blatant metaphor for their relationship - well, the sort-of-relationship they have - well, their thing, whatever it is.

“Your mom’s a metaphor.” Clint says, back flippantly.

“How is my mom a metaphor?” Phil responds, playing along.

“I metaphor a good time.” Clint replies, straight faced, and Phil tries to put on a blank face, he really does, but a half-groan, half-laugh escapes, and then he’s laughing like he hasn’t laughed before in years. Clint’s eyes are crinkly and smug and self satisfied, and before Phil has time to process what exactly their effect on him is(heart palpitations, shortness of breath, happiness), Steve is in the doorway telling them both to get back to work.

\---

“I’m dyslexic, apparently.” Clint says, barrelling into their apartment - no, it’s still Phil’s apartment - one day and throwing himself down on the couch. “I’m actually not just dumb.”

“No one’s ever thought you were dumb.” Phil assures him, smiling at the pile of papers he’s grading. He’d talked Clint into going to the university’s Disability Services office for an evaluation, but he hadn’t expected Clint to actually do it, much less return beaming and excited.

“You’d be surprised. Anyway, they signed me up for a whole bunch of free tutoring. And did you know we had a writing center? They help you write things.” Clint blurts out happily.

“Yes. I did.” Phil grins.

“Well, I didn’t. Okay, so, we’ve got my dumb ass dealt with, what about you?”

“What about me?” Phil asks, nervously. He shifts the papers on his desk, noting one of Clint’s, which he sets aside to be graded by Maria.

“Your anxiety. Or PTSD. Whichever it is.” Clint says, and Phil feels quite a bit off balance at being asked so directly.

“Um.” Phil shifts uncomfortably. He hasn’t really addressed that issue since his last panic attack.

“How about we make a deal?” Clint starts.

“What?”

“I’ll go to my tutoring sessions, if you go to therapy. I have the number for Steve’s - she specializes in counselling veterans. And if you get prescribed medication, you take it, and I’ll continue to make you breakfast.” Clint says.

Phil decides that it’s actually very difficult to say no to Clint, so he doesn’t.

\---

The cast and crew wrap party for _A Chorus Line_ is huge, taking up all three floors of a townhouse that is apparently Tony Stark’s. Phil recognizes only a few people, but everyone knows Clint, so he follows behind Clint, trying not to imitate a baby elephant pathetically following his mother.

“Clint! Honey!” A tall, brunette, and very pretty girl exclaims, eagerly wrapping her arms around Clint.

“Hey. Oh, Jess, hey.” Clint says cheerfully, disentangling himself gracefully, but insistently.

“This is my - um, this is Phil.” Clint waves his hand in the direction of Phil, who is slowly inching up to actually stand next to Clint, instead of shifting awkwardly behind him. “Phil, this is Jessica.”

“Hello, Clint’s um-this-is-Phil. It’s good to meet you.” Jess says, and she doesn’t comment on his clammy hands when she shakes them, so Phil thinks that he likes her.

“We dated last year.” Clint explains.

“It didn’t work out. Obviously.” Jess retorts quickly.

“I accidentally stepped on her pet spider.”

“It was six months of research for my biology thesis, not a pet.” Jess scowls at Clint.

“It’s really funny now, right?”

“Tell me the story again after I’ve had a few more drinks, and we’ll see.” Jessica smirks, lifts her beer at Phil and saunters away.

“We had a love, hate, love, hate, hate sort of relationship.” Clint mutters.

“Hmm.” Phil says, which is not a clever response, or much of a response at all.

Phil feels a little awkward being reminded of Clint’s proclivity towards women, so he is intensely relieved when Steve and Tony and Pepper sidle up and the conversation turns to how relieved everyone is that the show is over, even if it was a wonderful show.There is some gossip about Natasha and Bucky floating around, as well as some sordid tales of a possible love triangle between Thor, Sif and someone from the physics department.

Phil loses Clint for an hour, wrapped up in conversation with Steve himself, as Tony and Pepper drift off to make out in a brightly lit corner. So, he is surprised when Natasha suddenly appears next to him. “I need your help to come save Clint.”

“Huh?” Phil stammers. He isn’t actually certain what Clint has told Natasha about their relationship - sort of relationship thing - but he’s pretty certain that he wouldn’t be the first person elected to save Clint from anything.

“I can’t do it, because Bobbi hates me, and it’ll be even more drama and she’ll probably cry and it’s too early in the night for drunk crying. But you’re a bro - you can interrupt.” Natasha explains, but it’s not much of an explanation.

“A bro?”

“A friend. That’s what it means, right? Like bros helping bros?” Natasha asks.

“English is not your first language, is it?” Phil grumbles, as Natasha drags him through the crowd.

“No, it is not.” Natasha agrees, pointing to a dim corner.

Clint is pressed up to the wall, a smaller blonde girl persistently glued to him, her hands already starting to explore under his tight black t-shirt. Phil watches as she forcefully presses her lips to his, and he can’t help but feel a bit jealous when Clint does not immediately shove her away, even though his eyes remain open and somewhat alarmed. He’d have time to consider it further, figure out what exactly his emotions are regarding the situation, except Natasha pushes him towards the unexpected couple, and he trips, almost falling on Clint.

“Oh hey, Phil. Bobbi, I have to go talk to Phil.” Clint looks surprised, and panicky, but knows an opportunity to escape when it stumbles in his path.

“But baby - “ The girl - Bobbi, apparently - pouts, plastering an incongruously seductive look on her face.

“Bye!” Clint yelps, grabbing Phil’s arm and steering him back into the crowd. Natasha seems to have gone conveniently missing, and when Phil looks back, Bobbi isn’t there either.

Clint drags Phil up two flights of stairs, pressing past a horde of bodies that make Phil wince and breathe a little faster. But the masses of college students ease up, as does the growing hurt in Phil’s chest, and Phil finds himself guided out a small side door.

“Sorry. Needed some air.” Clint mutters, sitting down on the edge of the flat roof. Phil remains silent. Clint points up. “It’s Orion. My favourite constellation.” In another mood, at another party, next to another person, Phil might feel tempted to look up and discuss the stars, but currently, Phil is not inclined towards small talk.

“So, what was that?” Phil asks, not accusingly, but not without some tension in his voice.

“The constellation?“ Clint asks, but Phil does not rise to the bait, or the misdirection. Clint sighs. “Er, that was Bobbi. She’s my ex. She gets really handsy when she’s drunk.”

Phil tries to say something reassuring, to just shrug it off, but the words catch in his throat, and he can’t do anything but stare at his shoes. They are nice shoes, polished and leather and black. He’d worn them because this cast party, this was supposed to actually be a date, right? Clint had asked him out, they had arrived at the party together, he’d felt Clint’s steady hand on his back at the start of the night, guiding him through the sea of unfamiliar faces.

“I’m sorry. I really am. I don’t want to ruin this.” Clint finally says, making a hasty aborted gesture between himself and Phil.

“ _This_?” Phil can’t help but laugh a bit, because his life has just gotten so much more confusing in a matter of weeks, and he’s had several drinks. He was fine, being alone, working hard on his doctorate. He was fine without Clint’s constant breakfast-making and silly grins. He was fine, totally fine, without the this, without Clint. And he knows that all that is a lie, because he wants this, whatever _this_ is, but he simply doesn’t know how much more of the game he can play. “I don’t actually know what _this_ is, Clint. What _are_ we doing?”

Clint picks at the fraying ends of his long sleeved shirt, and looks everywhere but at Phil. He is beautiful under the moonlight, even fidgeting and anxious, and Phil wants to recapture the heady thrill of meeting Clint for the first time - not the uncomfortable silence that hangs between them now. “I - I don’t know. I like you, Phil. I like you a lot - but -”

“There’s always a but, isn’t there?” Phil sighs wryly. Phil sort of knows this one, he’s met it before. It was really fun, but. Thanks for helping me figure things out, but.

“Can we talk about it?” Clint asks.

Phil’s head hurts and his eyes can’t focus on anything right now, not Clint, not the stars, not even his own shoes. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow is better. When we’re sober.”

Clint grins then, and slides closer to Phil, nuzzling into his neck. “Well, we don’t have to _talk_ , you know.”

It’s the hardest thing to do, because Clint is remarkably confusing, but he is also remarkably gorgeous, but Phil stiffens and pulls away. “We _do_ have to talk.“ he says, and Clint’s disappointed face is difficult to bear, but Phil is a former Army Ranger and has been trained to undergo far worse torture.

They walk back together to Phil’s apartment silently, not daring to touch each other, even when Clint stumbles and drifts a little closer and Phil can feel the fabric of Clint’s leather jacket brush up against his own wool peacoat. Phil knows that he could slip his hand into Clint’s, press him up below a streetlight, kiss the cold breath from his chapped lips, and Clint, drunk and loose and needy, would happily comply, but Phil also knows that every movement towards Clint now is going to end in heartbreak later. Clint is beautiful and impossible, and Phil is already pretty sure that he knows how the story ends. It ends as it always does, with Phil alone.

But, when Clint curls up on the couch, burrowed under a pile of blankets, and Phil is standing in his bedroom’s doorway, Clint looks up and finally meets his eyes. Phil pauses, a bit involuntarily.

“I know you said you wanted to talk tomorrow, when we’re sober but - “ Clint starts, and he isn’t trying to be seductive, but goodness, his eyes are ridiculously blue.

“But?” Phil says, tired, but somehow hopeful.

“-but I just didn’t want you to go to bed thinking I didn’t like you. Because I do. I’m really exceptionally fond of you.” Clint says, his eyes wide and serious.

“I am quite fond of you too.” Phil admits, but an occasional drunk confession of feelings is not what he really wants, so he just smiles back, softly and nervously, and shuts his door.

Phil does not sleep soundly.

\---

In the morning, when Phil wakes up, Clint is still asleep on the couch, snoring gently, his blankets thrown off to the side, and pooling on the floor. His hair is rumpled, and his face is relaxed and young. Phil desperately resists the urge to run his fingers through Clint’s hair. Instead, he makes coffee, leaves half the pot for Clint, and starts the trek to the history department for his expected office hours. His back aches, his head hurts, and the promise of “the talk” with Clint hangs over his head like a sword on a string. He plods on.

Maria is already there when he arrives, which is odd, because her office hours are later in the day. She hands him up a paper cup of coffee, which is uncharacteristic of her, because Maria does not fetch people coffee. The coffee is black, because Maria does not care to know how Phil takes his coffee, because she will not be making it. It reminds him that Clint does know. Still, the paper cup in his hand is a signifier, and not of something good.

“It’s about Clint’s final paper. It’s really great.“ Maria finally blurts out.

“Um, okay? That’s not a problem. He’s been getting help from the writing center and disability services. His writing is supposed to get better.” Phil says, although he can’t ignore the portent of doom in the room now.

“Phil, this is not just _better_. Read it.” Maria sighs, shoving the stapled essay at him.

Phil does. He’d been pointedly ignoring Clint’s work in his class, trying hard not to create a conflict of interest, as per academic ethic regulations. This is the first time Phil has read one of Clint’s papers. And it’s good. It’s very, very good. “Oh.” Phil says, two paragraphs later. The cadence of the words are familiar, elegant, graceful, and he knows exactly who they belong to.

“Right? It’s not better, it’s frankly brilliant.” Maria says, sounding resigned.

“And it’s Natasha Romanov's, not Clint Barton’s.”

“I didn’t want to leap to that conclusion immediately. But she does have a really distinctive way of writing. I’ve TA-ed several of her classes.” Maria sighs.

“What do you want to do?” Phil says, too many emotions swirling around in his head - disappointment and disbelief at the forefront. Clint wouldn’t - not his Clint, not his loyal, caring Clint. But here he sits, holding a paper irrevocably written by Natasha Romanov, with Clint Barton’s name on it.

“It’s what _you_ want to do, Phil. You’re still the class instructor. I emailed him and asked him to come by during your office hours - which start in ten minutes, by the way. Do you want to do the talking?”

“No, not really.” Phil admits.

The next three hours pass slowly, Phil nervously twitching every time a student knocked on his door. Maria’s sympathetic glances are not a help at all. A few students come in for help with class work, to pick up papers, to discuss final grades, but it all floats by in a haze for Phil. It is not until the last fifteen minutes of his office hours that the door creaks softly, and Clint shuffles in. He’s managed to take a shower, and he smells like Phil’s soap. Phil looks at him, but Clint’s gaze is downcast, and focused anywhere but Phil.

“Please sit, Mr. Barton” Maria says, surprisingly gently. “I’ve been grading your work in Mr. Coulson’s class, you know that right?” Clint remains standing, ignoring the uncomfortable chair that Maria gestures to.

“Yes?” Clint’s eyes flicker to Phil, and Phil tries to force a stoic look on his own face, not quite able to look Clint in the eye himself. 

“I’m not sure how to really start this.” Maria says, kindly. ”Can you explain why your final paper looks like it was written by Natasha Romanov?”

Clint’s face is sad, but unsurprised. He glances in Phil’s direction, before boring his attention back on his own shoes.

“Clint - “ Phil starts, but he doesn’t know how to end the sentence. He just wants to make things better, and he doesn't know how to do that.

“I plagiarized it.” Clint says, his jaw tight.

“Okay. Um, okay?” Maria says, thrown off by the direct answer. Phil looks at her, just as confused. Most students have pages upon pages of excuses, or denials, or lies. Maria swallows, and continues unsteadily, “You know that we’ll have to refer this to the disciplinary committee. A mixed judicial panel will investigate - ”

“No, I’ll leave.” Clint cuts her off, roughly running a hand through his hair. His face is serious and decisive, and Phil knows that face by now, knows that he is powerless to shift it.

“Mr. Barton, expulsion is not the only option, and you deserve to present your side and have an advocate speak on your behalf.” Maria insists, her hand reaching out to lightly rest on Clint’s wrist. Phil feels a small spark of unwarranted jealousy, he should be the one holding Clint now, trying to make things right. But he can’t move closer towards Clint, can’t break through the wall that Clint has already erected around himself.

“No, I really don’t. Please don’t report this. I’ll withdraw from all classes. This is all on me. Don’t waste time on an investigation.” Clint blurts, abruptly jerking away from Maria.

“Clint, please -” Phil tries again, although he doesn’t even know what words he’s going to actually say.

“Sorry, Phil.” Clint says, with a small shrug. He steps out, closes the door, and by the time Phil has arranged his confused mind enough to leap up and go after him, Clint is long gone.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry - the angst does not let up in the chapter. I am serious about that chapter count though, and I assure you that it gets better. 
> 
> Warning for some hate speech, as well.

Phil physically restrains himself from breaking out into a run across campus, because he has a feeling that Clint is much faster and probably incredibly adept at disappearing. Maria nods sympathetically, and mumbles some words, but she’s just as awkward at handling personal drama as he is, so he just accepts the warmth of her effort. He makes himself sit in his chair for the last five minutes of his office hours. He makes himself stand up slowly, gather his things, and set his desk straight. He steps out with Maria, and his hands shake as he locks the door behind them.

“Phil, just go find him already.” Maria instructs, none too patiently.

Despite himself, Phil finds himself running to the scene shop anyway.

“Have you seen Clint?” Phil says, barreling into Steve’s office. The shop is quiet and empty today, and Phil feels the emptiness mock him.

“No, have you seen Natasha?” Steve asks. “She bolted out of here ten minutes ago.”

“No?”

“Something’s wrong.” Steve says, and it is a clearly a statement, not a question.

“Yes - I mean no. I mean, yes.” Phil says, sinking defeatedly into Steve’s spare chair.

“Is Clint okay?”

“I think he just dropped out of school.” Phil sighs.

“What?” Steve yelps.

So, Phil sits down and explains it all to Steve. He starts with the plagiarism issue, and then the academic probation, and then the homelessness, and before he knows it, he’s telling Steve that he’s utterly besotted over Clint, and the way he’s always around, and the way he makes breakfast, and the way he looks in a vintage suit from the costume shop, and and the way he’s so damn competent, and the way he is just so full of compassion and laughter and - Phil stops himself before he makes a complete fool of himself, even though he’s pretty sure it’s too late.

Steve, to his credit, keeps a fairly straight face. At the end of it, Steve rubs his temples and sighs. Surprisingly, the first thing he says is “Phil, this is not good for your career.”

“Screw my _career_ , what about Clint?” Phil snaps.

Steve looks at his phone and types a quick message. “Well, Natasha isn’t here, and neither is Tony, and I’m going to infer from the sequence of events that Natasha went flying out of my shop because Clint called her. I can also probably infer where the rest of my crew is.”

“With Clint?” Phil asks hopefully. He’d like to be the one to be there for Clint, but he’s also the source of the problem right now, so he gets it.

“Yes. I don’t know what to do about his academics, but if nothing else, your boy definitely has friends.”

“He’s not my boy.” Phil grits his teeth.

Steve takes him out for a burger and a beer, and chatters happily about the Army and theatre department politics and Phil doesn’t listen to any of it.

\---

Phil stays awake all night, staring alternately at his ceiling and his phone. He wants to send Clint a note, assure him that everything will be all right, but he’s not entirely sure how to - not entirely sure he wants to.

Finally, his phone rings. It is 5:30 in the morning. It’s an unknown number. Phil picks up.

“I'm only calling you because I only have your number because you gave it to me on that stupid business card.” Clint’s voice says, distant and miserable.

“Clint? Clint. Where are you? Are you okay?” Phil blurts, because he really doesn’t care about what Clint might have done, he just wants Clint to be okay.

“I’m at the county lockup.” Clint says, and a million things rush through Phil’s head, none of them good. “I’ll come and get you” he says, and at least he’s pretty sure he means that.

He’s pulling on his shoes in a hurry when Tony Stark calls him.

“Phil? It’s Tony, this is my fuckup. No doubt about it. Short story, Clint and I got drunk and we might have had a literal pissing contest in public, and we got sent to different holding centers. Pepper just got me out. I’ve been trying to track down Clint, has he called you or anything?” Tony rambles on, and Phil inhales sharply at the thought of Clint being absolutely alone in a holding cell.

“He just did, Tony. I’m going to get him.” Phil sighs, and he doesn’t hear the rest of Tony’s thankful praise.

The county lockup is clean and sterile, but the smell of piss manages to sift through the scent of bleach. Phil presents his ID, tells them Clint’s name, and follows the sullen cop down the row of cells.

Phil swallows when he sees Clint, who looks tired and beaten. Figuratively, as well as literally, he is sporting a black eye, and several bruises along his arms. Clint raises his eyes, and smiles a little, but it’s a hesitant smile, and a hesitant look, and it is not the least welcoming.

“Your boyfriend’s here for you, kid.” the cop sniggers.

“It’s my - he’s my roommate.” Clint answers sharply, and Phil keeps his face emotionless.

Clint doesn’t say anything as the cop hands him his things(just his wallet and a crescent wrench), mumbles a restrained “Tony will pay you back” when Phil pays the bail, and remains even more silent as he shuffles out to Phil’s car.

In the car, Clint stares fiercely out of the window.

Finally, Phil decides what’s making him the angriest right now. “Your roommate?” Phil blurts, because, well, that is true - or was true - but _roommate_?

“Really, Phil? That’s what you want to dwell on? I’m dropping out of school, I plagiarized a paper, I just spent the night in a jail cell, and what you’re upset about is that I called you my roommate?”

“The other things are fixable problems.” Phil says, and the perspective jolts him because it occurs to him that everything else isn’t actually an insurmountable problem. At this moment, he actually doesn’t care about any potential academic dishonesty on Clint’s part, doesn’t care about his misdemeanor record, doesn’t really care about anything but Clint. But _roommate_ \- wow, that one hurts.

“What do you fucking want, Phil? For me to sit in a jail cell declaring I’m a fucking faggot?” Clint yells.

What follows is stony silence, as Phil slowly, but definitively, processes Clint’s words to their logical conclusion. Roommate. Faggot. Yeah, he gets it. And there are lots of things he can forgive, but that one - rash and angry and dark - he knows where this path ends, and it doesn’t end with Clint whispering sweet nothings into his neck.

“Phil - I didn’t mean that. I meant that - I mean, you know I -“ Clint stammers, before his sentences drift off into nothing.

Phil remains quiet and tense, and drives. He pulls up in front of his apartment building, not bothering to seek out an actual parking spot. He gets it. He really does.

“I want to help you, Clint. But I can’t help you with everything. And I do not have the will in me to settle for being your temporary gay college experiment.” Phil thinks that it’s the most confident his voice has sounded in weeks.

“Phil - I - you’re not - ”

“You have a lot to figure out and I have a class to teach right now.” Phil slips into his professor mask, stern and distant.

“Phil, please.”

“And after I teach my class, which according to my class roster, you are no longer a student in, I’m going to Steve and ask him to reassign me to Pepper Potts for the rest of my Theatre Practicum hours. “ Phil continues.

“So, this is it?” Clint says, bitterly, climbing out of the car. “Collect your stuff, get out of my place, get out of my life, leave the keys in the mailbox?”

“I’m going to crash at Maria’s place tonight. Stay as long as you need to, but Tony just sent me a message, and he says that he has several spare rooms.” Phil says, staring determinedly at his steering wheel.

If Phil had looked back, the look on Clint’s face might have made his words less harsh. But, Phil does not look back.

\---

The days pass slowly without Clint.

Phil shadows Pepper Potts as she walks him through her stage manager duties, which currently just seem to involve a large amount of paperwork. Fortunately, he is quite good at paperwork. Pepper explains the intricacies of cue calling, which seem fairly straightforward, although she assures him that it’s mostly in the timing. Phil is also good at timing, except for any sort of timing that involves Clint Barton.

“So, Phil, you only have a few hours of Theatre Practicum left, and I could have you assist me for the next show, but I was thinking that maybe you could just stage manage the Winter Showcase yourself?” Pepper says, casually, but Phil senses the tone she uses when she really wants him to say yes.

“The Winter Showcase?”

“Yeah, it’s a quick little show we do right before winter break. It’s a variety show, so it’s not really fully rehearsed, and you’ll run lights yourself. I have Sif lined up for sound.”

“You’re going to let me run a show myself?” Phil asks, because he is pretty certain that he can, but Pepper’s trust seems to be something that isn’t doled out easily, and she’s offering it to him.

“It’s just a small thing our department does, and it won’t really matter if you screw up, promise. But you won’t screw up! You’re good, Phil, I can tell.” Pepper assures him.

Phil says yes, because it seems like a good thing to push his still-persistent thoughts of Clint aside.

\---

“Phil. Don’t check your email yet.” Maria says, when Phil storms into their office. He’s been in a bad mood for days, for obvious reasons.

“Why?” Phil snaps.  

“It’s about Clint Barton.”

“What about Clint Barton?” Phil grumbles, because he just wants to move on from this bad-idea phase of his life. He wants to sleep, he wants to stop thinking about Clint, he wants to finish his dissertation. He wants to work for Pepper and finish his Theatre Practicum hours as quickly as possible, and move on past his brief interlude of insanity where he thought he could have a family in the crazy inhabitants of the Stark Repertory scene shop.

“I wasn’t going to report it, Phil. I wasn’t. He was going to leave, and it was going to be okay, and you would finish your dissertation and you wouldn’t get into any trouble at all.” Maria spills, frantically.

Ah, there’s the “but” Phil thinks, as his world starts to fall apart further. “There’s a but,” he says, because, of course there is.

“Natasha Romanov reported it.”

“Really? She reported that Clint took her paper?”

“No, not at all. That’s the problem. She’s saying that she wrote it and submitted it on his behalf. She’s trying to take the blame.”

“Natasha is going to graduate _summa cum laude_ in a semester, Maria.”

“Well, now she might not. And the disciplinary committee wants both of us at the hearing, which is what you’ll find in your email. It’s probably not going to be good for you, Phil. You’re his professor and you have...a relationship with him, and there’s no way that’s not going to come out - .”

“Well, right now, I don’t have a relationship with him.”

“Phil - “

“I’m going to check my email now.” Phil says, and he does, and the contents do not make his day any better.

\---

“Miss Romanov.”

“Miss Hill.” Natasha says, and Maria nods and leaves the office, shutting the door quietly behind her.

“Phil.”

“Natasha.”

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t let Clint just quit school.” Natasha says, fitting herself primly on a chair.

“Where is he?”

“He’s staying in my dorm room. Tony was getting on his nerves a bit. It’s a bit cramped, but he’s fine.”

“Will you tell me what really happened?”

“The paper is his, mostly. All the ideas, all the concepts, they’re all his. But I did write it. It wasn’t his idea, but I convinced him that if he could just get a B on this paper, which would get him a C in your class, he’d be off academic probation and be on track to graduate. I just - I owe him a lot, Phil. I really wanted to graduate with him, y’know? See him in a dorky cape and gown, and all that?” Natasha mumbles, her whole body slouched over now. She sits on Maria’s chair, hugging her knees to herself.

“You know what this means for me too, right?”

“I do.”

“My career - the past eight years of my life - “

“I know.”

“And you - you are the best student this department has seen in years. And all this even means is that you’ll probably both be disciplined,” Phil sighs.” _Summa cum laude_ , Natasha, that’s really an achievement, and you’ll throw it all away for Clint?”.

Natasha laughs then, and the look in her eyes when she finally turns back to Phil is the look of a far wiser, a far harder, woman than her age belies.

“Phil. Mr. Coulson. Phil Coulson, you have no idea. Yes, I would destroy my academic career for Clint. I will destroy _your_ academic career for Clint. I would go to the ends of the world for him, and even if at the end of all this, he is still expelled, and me with him, it will happen with him knowing that his friends - his chosen  _family_ \- that I stood up for him, unwilling to let him go that easily.”

Phil is stunned, so he just sits staring at Natasha. Her clean American accent, formerly indistinguishable from any other student, has lapsed into a Russian lilt.

“Do you know why he wanted to just leave?” Natasha asks, but it is a rhetorical question. “He wasn’t trying to protect me; he knows better than that. He didn’t want to get _you_ in trouble. All this, all these degrees and dissertations and other crap, it just isn’t that important to me, but he knows it’s important to you. Nothing I’m doing right now for Clint is something he wouldn’t have done himself to protect you.”

She smiles. “And now I’m about to throw us all under the bus, just so Clint knows that I’ll always have his back, so I suppose we’re all prone to dramatic gestures.”

“He’s lucky to have a friend like you.” Phil says, because it’s true. He doesn’t really have a friend like Natasha, not really. He thinks he'd like to have one someday.

“Lucky? No.” Natasha laughs. ”He’s _worthy_ of a friend like me.”

“Natasha, I don’t know how to fix this.” Phil says, and she’s perceptive enough to know that he’s not talking about his career, or hers, or the upcoming disciplinary hearing.

“I don’t either. But, you’re good for him. And I think he’s good for you too. If anyone deserves a second chance, or a third, or a fourth, it’s him.”

Phil sinks his head into his hands. “I’ve been horrible to him.”

“You have been. He probably deserved it too. But you deserve a second chance too, and Clint tends to dole second chances out like candy. For a long time, I thought he was just naive, but now, I think he just somehow sees the potential in everyone. Even when we’re horrible.”

Phil nods, “Natasha, tell him - “ and then he pauses, because he’s still not sure what to say or do to make this all better. He isn’t certain he’s ready to forgive and forget  - some words, some actions just hurt too much. “ - tell him I’ll see him around.” Phil mumbles, which is a pretty weak thing to say, but he can’t do much better right now. Not yet - but maybe soon.


	9. Chapter 9

The person that Phil expects to see when he gets back to his apartment after his office hours is most certainly not Clint, so of course it is. Clint is sitting on the front steps of his building looking rumpled and exhausted, but clean and neat, and he’s obviously put some effort into not looking like a complete vagrant because none of Phil’s neighbours have complained yet.

Clint scrambles to his feet when Phil approaches.

“Clint.” Phil says, before Clint can get a word out.

“Phil, I just wanted to say-”

“I can’t deal with this right now.” Phil says, and it’s really not that he can’t, but he’s on the brink of a panic attack, and he doesn't want to have to deal with any more emotions right now, not happy ones, not sad ones, certainly not any that Clint is likely to invoke, no matter what Clint decides to say.

“I’m sorry.” Clint says, his face crestfallen. “I’m sorry - “

“Clint, I do not want to talk right now.” Phil says, because he doesn't actually want to know what exactly Clint is sorry for. It doesn't really matter, because now that Clint is standing here, in front of him, Phil thinks that he will forgive everything in a heartbeat.

“Just tell me you don’t want to see me anymore, and I will go away.” Clint says, holding out Phil’s spare key.

Phil’s voice catches in his throat, and he can’t tell Clint that, but he can’t tell Clint that he wants him to stay either. So, Phil just takes the key, walks past Clint, and shuts the door behind him.

If Phil had gone up to his apartment and looked out the window, instead of throwing himself into bed and burrowing under the sheets, he would have seen Clint outside, pacing around on the pavement for another hour, before finally walking away. But, he does not. He sits on his empty bed and doesn’t sleep and tries not to think of Clint in his bed with him, wrapping his body around his back and humming away his anxious thoughts. It’s ironic, Phil thinks, how Clint can rile him up with a look, and calm him with a touch. The very last thought in Phil’s head as he finally drifts off to sleep is how exasperating, confusing, and frustrating Clint is, and how Phil is absolutely, definitely, undeniably, in love with him anyway.

\---

The disciplinary hearing is held in one of the lecture rooms. It is too large for the number of people in it, and the tables have been arranged to make sure that the disciplinary committee are lit by the ugliest fluorescent lights. Phil recognizes some of them, has seen them in other departments, but he can’t help but think of them as Ugly Glasses(an elderly professor from the Math department), Grumpy(a young-ish man with the soul of a 75 year old) and Probably-Denied-Tenure(a middle aged man from the Art department).

All in all, Phil is not feeling optimistic. He avoids Clint’s eyes, so he can’t tell that Clint is focused on him, doesn’t notice the open, pleading look on Clint’s face, doesn’t notice the apologies written in every one of Clint’s movements.

Clint and Natasha sit together. Steve waves a small wave, and sits down besides Clint. A rumpled looking man with dark hair is right behind Clint, smoothing out his shirt, and Phil supposes that he is Bruce Banner, the man likely responsible for Clint’s current wardrobe, which is a bland, neatly pressed, suit. Bucky, Bruce, Sif, Thor, and Tony and Pepper are there too, and Phil is glad for Clint, glad that Clint has so many friends willing to stand up for him, and his character.

Phil picks the other side of the room. He just has Maria by his side. Before the hearing starts, however, Pepper walks over, and sits herself down next to him, and Tony follows.

“Um, shouldn't you be in Clint’s court?” Phil asks, confused.

“There are no sides, Phil.” Pepper says, patiently, as if she were speaking to a five year old.

Grumpy and Probably-Denied-Tenure discuss the allegations being brought against Clint and Natasha. Neither Natasha nor Clint deny any of them, aside from the short squabble where they both attempt to take the blame. Steve rubs his temples and sighs. The academic disciplinary committee frown in unison, the sort of frown that clearly say that academic dishonesty committed with good intentions is still academic dishonesty.

And then - the questions turn to Phil.

“When did you find out about Clint Barton’s academic dishonesty?” Ugly Glasses asks, tapping a sharp pencil on her beaked nose.

“Last Monday morning. From my office mate, Maria Hill.” Phil says, gesturing to Maria, who nods her assent.

“And did you report it?”

“I did not.” Phil admits, steadying his voice into something confident, although he doesn't feel it at all.

“Why did you not report it?”

“Clint Barton dropped my class.”

“That does not exempt you from reporting the misconduct, Mr. Coulson.” Ugly Glasses frowns.

“I know.” Phil says.

“Mr. Coulson, what is your relationship to Mr. Barton?” Ugly Glasses asks, and the room falls to a still silence.

Phil can hear himself inhale, can hear his heartbeat. From the way Maria sneaks her hand into his for a quick, supportive squeeze, she can probably hear it too.

“As we know, I teach Age of Discovery, in which Mr. Barton was enrolled as a student. He was also the supervisor for a unit of Theatre Practicum that I was taking.” Phil explains, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice.

“Is he currently your supervisor in that class?” Grumpy asks.

“No, sir.” Phil answers, his heart pounding.

“Is that all?” Ugly Glasses says, flipping through the papers on her desk, already ready to call the case closed and dismiss the room.

Phil tries to look at Clint, but he can’t. Instead, he lets his eyes rest on Steve, who is gripping Clint’s arm tightly, a stoic expression on his own face. He looks at Natasha, whose face is contorted in anger she’s not even trying to hide anymore. He does look at Clint though, and what he sees surprises him. He’d expected Clint to look lost, or even terrified, but Clint is none of that. Clint is holding Natasha lightly, an arm wrapped gently around her shoulders as he tries to calm the fire out of her. He whispers something in her ear, and Natasha smiles, and her face relaxes slightly - still dissatisfied, but at least no longer furious. There is resignation in Clint’s posture, but the primary emotion he’s projecting is concern. Concern for Natasha, mostly. Clint looks up and meets Phil’s eyes. A wry smile crawls over Clint’s face, accompanied by a small wave. Concern for Phil too, and that thought lodges in Phil's throat. Permission to deny their relationship, given freely. Save your own ass, Phil, Clint exhorts, silently - please don’t let me bring you down.  

And in that moment, Phil knows that he finally understands Natasha, understands the loyalty that a person like Clint inspires, understands why his friends are willing to fight and sacrifice for him. He gets the kind of person that Clint is, even through Clint’s moments of low self esteem and confusion and anger. Clint is a good person, with a boundless amount of love for other people, for his work, for his friends. Clint’s self sacrificial streak isn’t borne out of self sabotage and self hatred at all, Clint is a much simpler person than that. Clint loves Natasha, therefore Clint did not want to see Natasha get into trouble. Clint didn’t want to see Phil get into trouble, which means that Clint - oh, dammit.

“I’d like Mr. Barton to leave the room, please.” Phil hears himself say, and watches as Steve lets go of Clint, standing up from his own chair to let Clint pass. He looks down at his shoes, until the quiet shutting of the door tells him that Clint is outside. 

“He was also my roommate.” Phil starts, but that’s not right at all, and the words sound foreign on his lips. “No, that’s not it at all. I’m sorry, let me start again.” Phil corrects.

“He was the person that I wanted to come home to every day. He made me breakfast.” Phil finally says, and he can hear a small gasp from Steve and an incredulous look on Natasha’s face. She knew, of course, she’s just surprised that he’s actually admitting it, and in so public a manner.

“I knew it.” Tony Stark mumbles, only to receive a sharp jab in the side from Pepper, and a stern look from Ugly Glasses.

“He makes my life interesting. He makes it worth it. I trust him. I care about him.” Phil finally admits, and the unimaginable weight lifts from his shoulders.

“Is that all?” Ugly Glasses asks, but Phil has been repressing his emotions for a ridiculously long time, and the dam has broken now.

“Clint - Clint is amazing, okay? He has a whole bunch of people here to tell you that he’s a good person, that he deserves second chances, and he deserves the love and respect of every single one of those people because he has earned it. Clint works hard - he works so hard. Did you know he’s dyslexic? Disability Services just diagnosed him and he’s getting the help he needs, but everything is harder for him. But if you’ve seen him work, seen him work with his lab students, how easily he commands them, teaches them - they all adore him. I - well, I suppose I adore him too.” Phil continues. He giggles a bit inside, realizing that he's admitting his deep and persistent adoration of Clint Barton in front of a grumpy looking academic disciplinary committee, before he's managed to do so in front of Clint Barton.

“So, you’re saying that the nature of your relationship is that you are dating Clint Barton?” Probably-Denied-Tenure asks, pointedly.

“Correct. Well, not right now. But I would like to resolve that issue, if at all possible.”

“You do realize that this is a violation of our faculty code of conduct.”

“Yes.” Phil says, and he doesn't regret it at all. “Actually, I wish I’d violated that code of conduct a lot sooner. I've been cold, I haven’t told him how I've really felt, and I don’t think I ever have. And he has - I just hadn't been paying enough attention. Truthfully, I just didn't think I really believed he’d ever want to hang out with me, much less actually be interested in me. At every step, Clint has been open and honest, and I've been hesitant and closed off and scared. He wears his heart on his sleeve, every emotion, every moment of confusion - and that’s something no one really does anymore, you know? People like Mr. Barton are rare, and I think anyone that has ever met him can see that. Clint Barton is a better person than any one of us in this room right now, and everyone that he calls a friend is the most fortunate person in the world. Frankly, I don’t care about your ethics committee -” and Phil surprises even himself with those words “- I used to care about them a lot, these rules and codes of conduct, but now I think I care about people more. People like Clint Barton, and Natasha Romanov, people who are genuinely good people, no matter what mistakes they’ve managed to make. ”

Phil makes himself stop then, because Steve is looking at him in surprise, and Natasha’s expression is completely unreadable.

“We will be forwarding this matter to the faculty ethics committee.” Probably-Denied-Tenure says.

“I know.”

“If you have nothing else to add, you may sit down, Mr. Coulson.”

“Thank you.” Phil says, and he does, his knuckles white.

He doesn't really notice the rest of the proceedings. The committee asks Maria some questions, which she answers in extremely short sentences. Clint is back in the room again, still flanked by Natasha and Steve. Natasha is grasping Clint’s hand tightly, probably enough to hurt him.  

There are brief nods and hums, before Grumpy speaks again. “We will discuss this matter internally and inform all parties of the results in writing. The additional matter of Phil Coulson’s ethical conduct will be addressed as well at that time. If you have any input into the secondary matter of Phil Coulson’s ethical conduct, you may contact the committee directly. Thank you all for your participation.”

The room files out quietly and briskly then, Maria giving his shoulder a small squeeze as she walks past him. He wants to start towards Clint, but Natasha is already hustling Clint out of the room, whispering urgently in his ear. Phil slumps down into his chair, not quite ready to move yet, his chest feeling surprisingly light and heavy at the same time. Oh god, what has he just done?

\---

Fortunately, Phil can’t give much thought to his blatant dive-bombing of his entire academic career, because he has to stage manage the Stark Repertory Winter Showcase that same night. Pepper gives him a tight hug, and then shoos him away into the control booth for the smaller black box theatre that the showcase is being held in. Bruce Banner is filling in as his assistant stage manager tonight, and the man is quietly competent, and eases much of Phil’s nervousness.

“Coulson, that was a good thing you did earlier today.” Bruce says, muttering into his headset.

“Um. Thanks?” Phil stammers back, because how do you gracefully accept that you've declared your love for a plagiarizing student - er, your plagiarizing student -  in front of an ethics committee, and will likely leave as nothing more than a disgraced PhD candidate and never work in academia again?

He looks at his list of scrawled cues, already written over with corrections several times over. “Things change, you’ll just have to adapt.” Pepper said, assuring him that the night would go fine, and Phil thinks that that probably applies to far more than just stage management.

The first half of the show goes as anticipated, at least, and Phil even smiles a bit. Tony Stark is emceeing the event with his typical swagger, and it is a part he was born to play. Phil - Phil actually feels pretty good right now. The show runs well, and he feels confident sitting up in the dark booth, with only Bruce and Sif in his ears. He grins a little to himself, after confessing his adoration of Clint Barton in the most ridiculously public manner possible, he can probably do anything. Perhaps he could try conquering Australia tomorrow. At some point, he will talk to Clint too, but right now, he has a show to manage.

“Standby sound 12.” Phil says, as Tony Stark steps back on stage.

“So, um. We have a last minute act we’re slotting in. Phil, just a bit of light over here is fine.” Tony says, gesturing uselessly in Phil’s direction, and Clint walks out with an acoustic guitar and a stool.

“Er, scratch that cue, Sif.” Phil says. “Apparently we’re improvising.”

Phil is grateful that he has something to do, because Clint is looking right at him, his eyes boring into the small window that Phil is looking out of. Phil knows logically that the lights are too bright, and the control booth too dark, and Clint can’t possibly see him, but he looks away anyway, before his feelings threaten to have their way with him. Oh my goodness, he really is having an unprecedented amount of feelings today. He brings up a single light on Clint.

“Do you know what channel that mic is plugged into, Sif?” Phil asks.

“He’s holding up four fingers, so I assume it is channel 4.” Sif says, and Phil looks down to see that Clint is in fact engaged in some semi-complex sign language with Sif, who grins and turns on Clint’s mic.

“Ladies and gentlemen, our beloved master carpenter! You've seen him scowl at you and call you incompetent, and you probably had a crush on him when you were a freshman! Presenting Clint Barton!” Tony announces, and the room applauds.

Clint settles into the stool, and grins at the audience, that wicked smirk that makes several women whoop, and Phil is certain that Natasha is hollering happily, louder than any of the others.

Clint starts strumming the guitar, a song that sounds vaguely familiar to Phil, but he doesn't recognize it. But he understands the notion when Clint begins to sing - it is a song of apology, of desire, of promises, and most importantly - of commitment.

Clint doesn't look away from the control booth for one second, and the smirk quickly disappears. His voice is surprisingly pleasant. “I’m yours...” he sings, and the words “if you’ll have me” aren't part of the lyrics, but every muscle in Clint’s body is saying it, and Phil can hear it just fine. The lump in Phil’s throat does not dissipate as Clint sings.

“Just so there is no miscommunication,” Clint says, as he strums the last chords, his eyes focused on Phil’s place in the control booth. “I am apologizing for running away. I’m apologizing for my hurtful words. And begging you to take me back, in an extremely public forum. And I pretty much never beg unless it’s important so - ”

“ - Clint, please go make up with your boyfriend off stage.” Tony Stark interrupts, practically shoving Clint off the stool. Clint laughs and runs offstage, waving at the cheering audience.

“Hey Bruce? Can you give a headset to Clint?” Phil asks, because his heart feels close to bursting, and after weeks of telling Clint that they’ll talk “later”, and brushing off every possible discussion about their relationship, now he really cannot wait until the end of this show to deal with it.

“Yes, and you’d better be nice to that kid, or I’ll get very angry.” Bruce answers.

“Yeah, yeah, and I won't like you angry. Warning sound 12.” Phil says, drawing a guffaw out of Bruce.

“Hey, Phil.” Clint’s voice says in his ear, as Tony Stark introduces the next act.

“Standby sound 12. I didn't know you could sing.” Phil says.

“That was for you, by the way.” Clint responds.

“I’m usually pretty dense, but I think I got that part. Sound 12, go.” Phil brings the lights up on what looks like a mime. He glances at his list of acts. Huh, it is really is a mime, gesticulating to a soundtrack of New York traffic.

“Before this gets mushy, I want to remind you two that I am still on headset.” Bruce interjects.

“Me too, but I think this is really cute, so please go ahead.” Sif says, and Phil tosses a pencil at her.

“Natasha told me what you said at the hearing.” Clint says, his voice a bit shaky.

“Did she? Warning, sound 13.”

“Warned. Oh my god, Clint, your boyfriend is the cutest thing.” Sif says.

“I’m a decade older than you, Sif.” Phil groans.

“He’s not my boyfriend yet, but - ” Clint says.

“You should really say yes, Phil. The kid is built like a Greek god. I have his measurements on file to prove it.” Bruce offers. The mime on stage narrowly avoids a falling piano.

“He already knows the most important measurement,” Clint interjects, and Phil groans.

“Standby sound 13, and Clint, were you trying to ask me to be your boyfriend, or were you making dick jokes?” Phil says, lowering the stage lights on the mime.

“Standing by, and I think he was doing both.” Sif says. On stage, the mime saunters off, and Tony Stark waves Natasha and Steve on.

“I was doing both,” Clint agrees.

Phil washes the stage in blue light, and spotlights Natasha and Steve.

“Alright, neither of us can really sing, so this is a sing along.” Steve says.

“Speak for yourself, Rogers, I sing beautifully. Hit it, Sif!” Natasha shouts - pointing up at the booth.

“Sound 13 go.” Phil says, and a familiar instrumental soundtrack rings out over the speakers, Sif already humming along.

“Did you mean what you said, Phil? About me? About wanting to see me when you got home, and breakfast and all that?” Clint asks.

“Sometimes in our lives, we all have pain, we all have sorrow ” Steve starts, his voice quite a bit squeaky and tuneless.

“But if we are wise, we know that there’s always tomorrow,” Natasha continues, gravelly and perfect, and then the entire room joins in on the first verse.

“Lean on me. When you’re not strong. I’ll be your friend. I’ll help you carry onnnn...” - the sound of assorted voices float through the theatre, unaided by speakers, and Phil feels - well, what he really feels like doing is ripping his headset off and finding Clint and never letting him go ever again.

“Yeah, I did mean it. Every word.” Phil says instead, because he’s not an irresponsible stage manager.

“Jesus, this is so kumbaya.” Bruce says over headset, but Natasha is already pulling him out of the wings, throwing her arm around his shoulder, and forcing him to sing along.

“And that concludes the Stark Rep Winter Showcase!” Tony declares, as the song winds down, and the room explodes in cheers. Phil brings the house lights up, and there’s Clint, standing next to Bruce and Natasha, looking right up at him with the biggest smile on his face. Natasha leans into Clint, her hand around his waist, snaking around his hip to hit the transmit button on his headset. “Phil, are you going to come down here to make out with your boyfriend or what?”

“Tell him to come up here.” Phil says, watching as Clint punches Natasha in the arm and breaks away from the pack, pulling the headset off.

“I’m going off headset,” Bruce says, saluting in the direction of the booth from the stage.

“I’m also going off headset and getting the hell out of here before Clint Barton gets here and takes his pants off.” Sif says.

She high fives Phil on the way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh maaan, thank you all so much for putting up with all the angst. But the important part is fixed now, right? We'll "fix" the academic problems in the next chapter. 
> 
> Footnote time!
> 
> 1\. A [black box theatre](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_box_theater) is quite literally a black box of a theatre space. They are generally re configurable and used for smaller events and shows, like the Stark Repertory Winter Showcase. 
> 
> 2\. It is common for a stage crew to just improvise their way through shows like this, without cue calling particularly planned out. At the theatres I used to work at, we'd give the stage manager a day off and just run shows like this(small variety shows, concerts, etc) ourselves, with 2-3 crew members(one on lights, one on sound, one on stage). The person on lights or sound, whomever was more suited for multitasking, would just take on the stage manager role.


	10. Chapter 10

Phil starts to feel nervous in the dark and empty control booth, so he turns on the lights, but the dark is not the source of his anxiety. Clint’s boots ring out against the metal grating, clomping up the stairs, and the door bursts open and then Clint is just right there, in the doorway, looking like everything Phil wanted to see.

Phil speaks first.

“Before anything else, Clint - I really need to know that this is not just going to be a -”

“I like men.” Clint states, cutting Phil off abruptly.

“Yeah?” Phil stammers, desperately wanting to believe Clint.

“I’ve _always_ liked men. I like women too, and it’s much easier to date women, so I did. Not everyone is as comfortable in their own skin as you are, Phil. I’m sorry I’ve been a jerk about it, I really am - but if there’s any time for me to actually come out and be comfortable about it - well, I’m a theatre major surrounded with the most amazing friends in the world, and seriously, half the men in the department are gay anyway, so this is it. I like men. I like you.” Clint swallows, and looks down at his feet before meeting Phil’s eyes again. ”It sounds really stupid in words, but will you please date me? Because I did just tell half of the theatre department that I’m totally into you, and begged you to take me back, and it would really affect my reputation if you said no.”

Phil grins. Yeah, he believes it. “I’m pretty sure I already said yes.” he says, and then Clint has launched himself into his arms, and everything in his world is as alright as it is ever going to be. Clint kisses desperately, and Phil matches the effort. Clint is soft, and rough, and right. When he opens his eyes, Clint is staring back at him, his eyes large and wet and Phil marvels right back into them, because Clint’s eyes are crinkly at the edges, and his smile is the brightest thing in the room.  

A loud whoop sounds from downstairs, because apparently there is a theatre department policy to never allow two people to kiss and makeup in peace on Stark Repertory Theatre property.

“Pizza and beer in the shop if you two are done sucking face up there!“ Natasha shouts, and Phil can hear Sif giggling helplessly next to her.

“Tasha, you asshole! I love you like a sister, but if you don’t think I’ll tell Steve about you and Bucky in the prop loft, you are sorely mistaken!” Clint yells back.

“Barton and Coulson, sitting in a tree!” Sif sings, and Phil groans, because this is the life he’s apparently opted into. With Clint Barton, and the colourful mess of the theatre department, and childish teasing, and more pizza than he’s eaten in the past decade.

“So, want to go get pizza?” Clint offers, his hand wrapped confidently around Phil’s.

“No. I want to manhandle you back to my apartment and eat toast for dinner.”

“Is toast all that’s left of my grocery shopping?”

“There’s butter too.”

“Do I have to take care of you all the time?” Clint sighs.

“I already snuck my extra key back into your pocket. And you don’t have to sleep on the couch any more.”

“Are you propositioning me, Phil Coulson? And can we get takeout?”

“Absolutely, to both.” Phil says, and he’s so damn happy he doesn’t know what to do with himself, or what to think, or what else to say, or where to put his hands. Fortunately, Clint is wearing exceptionally tight jeans, and solves at least one of those problems for him.

It amazed Phil the first time around how easily Clint slotted into his life weeks earlier, and the second time around was not much different. But better, because Clint is apparently not all that fond of wearing clothing, and the only thing better than a Clint Barton making breakfast in the morning is a Clint Barton wearing nothing but boxer briefs making breakfast in the morning.

\---

The threat of the disciplinary committee's decision still hangs over both their heads, although Phil is feeling surprisingly calm about it. Clint takes up most of the anxiety, bustling around the apartment and churning out a constant stream of tea and sandwiches, although not for himself. “It doesn’t actually matter whether I get a degree in theatre, Phil.” he says, “It’s not actually a prerequisite to work as a scenic carpenter.” Natasha tries to be nonchalant, but Phil can see that she is knotted with worry, so he gets used to her presence in his apartment, letting Clint fuss over her and make her tea and forces her to join them as they watch Dog Cops together. Clint stakes out the center of the couch, with Natasha and Phil on either side, and Phil learns to get used to waking up at two in the morning with Natasha slumped against his shoulder, and Clint leaning up against his other side, lit with the dim glow of a reading light. Sometimes Steve comes over as well, and Tony and Pepper often stop by with surprisingly good take out, and Phil finally invites Maria over to his place, and Phil gets very used to the thought of having a family in this misfit crew.

Clint is steadier than expected when he steps into the apartment, with two identical manila folders in his hand. “I picked mine up from campus mail, and then I went to your office and Maria said yours had come in, so I thought it’d be okay if I brought it to you.”

Phil takes the envelope with his name on it. “And Natasha?”

“She got hers earlier, but she’s working at the shop today. I thought maybe we’d open them together after she’s done.” Clint explains. “Can she come over after her shop hours?”

“Let’s go meet her there. If it’s bad news, Tony Stark can buy us beer afterwards.” Phil says, comfortably resigned.

So, that’s how Phil, Natasha and Clint end up sitting on a large worktable in the scene shop, staring at their envelopes which hold their academic fate.

“I can’t open it.” Natasha says, handing her envelope to Phil.

“Here, read mine instead.” Clint passes his to Natasha, which she opens and reads quickly. Phil opens Natasha’s, and hands his envelope to Clint, since they’re apparently playing musical envelopes.

“Oh wow,” Phil says, skimming over Natasha’s letter. “Good news or bad news first?”

“Bad.” Natasha says, immediately.

“You’re suspended for a year.”

“That’s actually not that bad. Good news?”

“Due to your stellar academic performance and the lack of prior concerns about your academic history, and statements from many members of the history department vouching for your character, you will be allowed to finish the current semester, with no affect to your current grades. This disciplinary action will be part of your closed academic record.” Phil reads.

“Congrats, Nat. You’ll still graduate summa cum laude, just a year late.” Clint smiles weakly.

“The suspense is killing me, can we continue?” Tony chimes in from behind them, even as Pepper elbows him in the ribs.

Natasha pulls out Clint’s letter. “You will take a no-pass in your Age of Discovery class, but you can retake it with a different instructor.”

“I already dropped it, it’s a no-pass anyway. Am I expelled?” Clint asks, pushing himself up into a squat to bounce on the balls of his feet.

“No, there’s more. Huh, that’s odd.”

“What is it?”

“Due to the college not making legally required accommodations for your learning disability, you will be allowed to re-submit any written paper for a grade adjustment, on any class you’ve taken so far.”

“But - I was _just_ diagnosed -”

Tony chimes in, “Well, that might not necessarily be the case.”

“Tony...” Phil starts. Phil has a pretty good idea of what might have happened, which Pepper confirms with a wicked smile.

“There might be some electronic records in Disability Services’ database that say that Clint was diagnosed with a learning disability his freshman year of college, although the school made no effort to accommodate him in the years after. Turns out, the college is legally required to.” Pepper says.

“But I wasn’t diagnosed with anything until - “ Clint complains.

“That’s just a technicality. It’s in the database, so it must be true.” Tony says. “We got it.” Pepper agrees, handwaving any further questions away. “And that means that you can rewrite your papers - but do it yourself this time, by the way - up your grades and get off academic probation.”

“Don’t get too excited, you’ve also been suspended for a year, and it’ll be part of your closed academic record.” Natasha chimes in, but Clint is already grinning wide, leaning happily into Pepper’s hug.

Phil pokes dejectedly at his lonely envelope on the table, as the remaining crew hanging around the shop(Steve and Thor and Bucky and Sif) gather around to congratulate Clint and Natasha on not being thrown out of school. Clint sits next to him, bumping a reassuring shoulder against his, and picks up the foreboding envelope again. “Ready, Phil?” Clint asks.

“Yeah. You read it, please.” Phil says, so Clint does. Clint is not a particularly fast reader, but Phil can already tell from the look on his face that his letter might not be good news at all.

“Shit, I’m sorry, Phil.” Clint says, and he looks like he’s about to cry. Phil has been in the presence of many of Clint’s feelings lately, but he’d prefer to avoid this one right now. Phil takes the letter back from him.

“I’m suspended for a year too.“ Phil says, reading. “But my teaching assistantship is revoked immediately, which means I can’t afford to stay another semester. And this disciplinary action will be part of my open academic record as a faculty ethics violation.”  

“What does that mean?” Natasha asks, quietly.

“It means that it’s highly unlikely I’ll ever land a teaching position at a university.” Phil sighs, instinctively burrowing his face in his hands. There really isn’t any sugarcoating any of this, Phil thinks, this really is quite bad.

“Is there an appeals process?” Pepper asks, and her voice is surprisingly comforting and confident.

“I dated one of my students, Pep. I don’t think there’s any way to get around that major ethical violation, even if he barely showed up at class.” Phil smiles wryly.

“Maybe Clint could write a letter - “ Pepper starts.

“He already did.” Natasha interjects. “Before the hearing. Clint spoke to the disciplinary committee and insisted that he pursued Phil, and that Phil did not actually respond to any of his overtures. Clint and I had already plagiarized a paper, we figured that the least we could do was to make sure you didn’t get thrown out of your program as well.”

“But that’s not even true.” Phil sighs.

“Well, it would have been totally fine if you hadn’t also decided to dramatically declare your undying affections for one Clinton Francis Barton in front of a disciplinary committee.” Natasha snarks.

“C’mon, Phil, let me buy you a drink.” Steve offers, but Phil shakes his head. “Thanks, but I think I’d rather go home and just...think.”

“Can I come home with you?” Clint asks, and even though Phil wants nothing more to be alone with his own emotions right now, he doesn’t want Clint to go. Even now, even after Clint has become a part of his life and heart like no one ever has before, Phil still surprises himself by saying “Yes.”

\---

Phil half-heartedly works on his dissertation, but without classes to teach, or office hours to keep, he has far too much time in his day, so he’s back to spending it in the Stark Repertory scene shop. Pepper forces him into an quasi-apprenticeship with her, and he often finds himself following her rapid stilettoed walk(how she does it, he doesn’t know) around the theatre department, admiring her impeccable ability to run a show with an iron fist, with only minimal disruption of her paperwork routines.

The rest of the time, he finds himself pulled into a “special project” that Tony has whipped up, and finds himself falling into a happy routine of parsing scenic elevations and cutting wood. “Do you even know what we’re building?” he asks Clint, who is staring glumly at a paint elevation that appears to have a complex brick paint texture on it, complete with paint swatches and Tony's scrawled notations.

“This sheet of paper says ‘Stark Secret Project 001’ and I’m pretty sure I can’t turn this very flat, wooden wall into a brick wall. Natasha can paint this later, if Stark can convince her to work for free.”

“So no, you don’t know what we’re building?”

“I’ve been working in the presence of Tony Stark for four years, I’ve actually stopped asking.” Clint laughs, sliding over to Phil’s side to sneak an arm around his waist. Soft kisses soon follow down Phil’s neck, and Phil carefully puts down his bottle of wood glue to reciprocate, with significant interest.

“Ugh, get a room. Or at least go to the prop loft.” Natasha groans, sidling over to them to grab the paint elevations that Clint has left forgotten on the work table. “Can’t leave you kids alone anywhere.”

“To be fair, Natasha - I _really_ don’t care.” Clint shrugs, even though Phil is beet red. Phil might still care a little bit about blatant displays of public affection.

“I’m the five minute warning. Tony and Pepper are about to barge in here.” Natasha offers, even as she starts making detailed notes on the papers. “I’ll paint this, just because it is sad watching Clint try and figure out how a paint brush works.”

Tony and Pepper do barge in, and Tony is wearing a large grin on his face that can only mean trouble. Pepper has a sly smirk on hers, which makes the trouble an unavoidable fact.

“Have you three decided what to do while you’re kicked out of school?” Tony asks, not mincing words.

Clint shrugs. “I put in an application at a summer camp for teaching archery to kids. It doesn’t start until May, but there’s also a year round program at an archery club an hour away that they might take me on for.”

Natasha shrugs. “Please don’t laugh, but I’ve picked up a few modelling jobs.”

“I’m not laughing. I think you’re very pretty when you clean up, Natasha.” Tony offers.

“Thanks, I think?” Natasha says, a bit thrown aback at the half-compliment.

“Phil?” Pepper asks, and Phil pauses. He doesn’t actually know; he hasn’t really had the energy to think about it. He’d been treating the scene shop as a bit of an escape, and it might not be entirely healthy, but it’s been a long time he’s felt so comfortable in a place.

“Don’t worry. I’ve solved this problem for all of you.” Tony starts, before Phil can mumble an excuse.

“Oh, really.” Clint says, unimpressed. Clint has been present for many of Tony’s “solutions,” and might still have a couple of minor burn marks to show for it.

“Phil, I’ve been thinking about how you pretty much demolished your entire career, just to let Clint know that you liked him. That was possibly the most difficult way out, and I wouldn’t have recommended it.” Tony starts.

“ _Please_ say there’s a point beyond how much of an idiot I am.” Phil groans.

“There is a point, “ Tony continues, “I thought about the guts that must have taken, and it made me realize that I’ve been hiding out here for quite a few more years than I should have. It’s comfortable, this theatre department. I like it here, I love Pepper, I like Steve, I like everyone here, and that’s really saying something. But, I graduated seven years ago and the theatre department has been very gracious in letting me hang around, but it’s just graciousness borne out of my parents' money. I haven’t done anything I’m truly passionate about lately. But, you know what? _I’m really fucking rich_. I can do _anything_ I’m passionate about.”

“Tony. What is the _point_?” Natasha demands, impatient.

“Okay, the point is that I just started a travelling children's theatre company, and I want you three to work for me. Pepper didn’t want me to talk about it until we were were an actual legal entity and I can legally offer you a job, but I have year long contracts for the three of you, and it pays quite well, I promise, and not just by theatre standards. And er, includes retroactive pay for all this too.” Tony says, gesturing to the pile of flats that Phil and Clint had been working on in the past couple weeks.

Tony rolls up the metal shop’s door then, and waves to the large metal arm, now painted a bright green and labelled "Dum-E" on the bottom. Dum-E waves back.

“Stark Robotics Theatre is what I’m calling it. It is a children’s theatre that introduces elementary school kids to both art and science. I just wanted to do a travelling robot show, but Pepper insisted that an elementary school program would be better for getting grants. Our first show is Jack and the Beanstalk. This is Dum-E. He’s the Beanstalk.” Tony explains. “We’ve already booked a Pacific Northwest tour.”

Dum-E whirrs a hello, and extends his arm to the sky, or at least the ceiling of the metal shop. Pepper holds out three folders. “Clint, we’d like to hire you as the technical director. We’re starting really small, with just the four of you on the road, so between you and Tony, you’ll be responsible for all set, costume and lighting needs.” she says, handing Clint his. “Natasha, we want to hire you as a performer, carpenter and painter. Everyone will be multitasking a lot, but we’re theatre kids, that’s what we do.”

“What are you trying to hire me to do?” Phil asks, because he’s certain he doesn’t have the skills the others do.

“Stage manage, of course.” Pepper says, handing him the folder. “Well, production manager. You'll be responsible for keeping this ridiculous idea together. I have another year and a half of this grad program left, I’m not going to travel cross country driving a cargo truck, and besides, I already have a wonderful job offer from the regional theatre I interned at last summer. I’ll stay here, handle the fundraising and marketing aspects of the theatre, and try to get us non-profit status. Meanwhile, I’ll need someone to babysit my boyfriend, and make sure he doesn’t burn any unsuspecting elementary schools down.”

“I built a fire extinguisher into Dum-E.” Tony assures her.

“So, what do you think?” Pepper prompts, ignoring Tony.

“Hell yeah, I’m in.” Natasha says, quickly signing the contract and handing it back to Pepper.

“Me too.” Clint says, adding his signature to his own.

They turn to Phil.

“I have to think about it, guys, I’m sorry. This is a lot to take in. My life has...changed a lot in just a few months, and I’m really trying to just keep up.” Phil says, nervously. It would be so easy to sign the contract, go on the road with Tony and Natasha and Clint, but it’s all so strange. Just two months ago, he was desperately trying to finish a dissertation on the role of the museum in colonial history, and now, he’s about to go traipsing off into the sunset with a children’s theatre company?

“Take your time, read the contract, call me if you have any questions. But, I’m serious about this, Phil. You’re a natural, I think you’ll do a wonderful job, and I think that you really do want this.” Pepper says, reassuringly, and Pepper is perfect and calm and everything feels easier when Pepper is there.

Phil smiles awkwardly, gripping the folder. Beside him, he feels Clint slip a hand into his elbow. “Let’s go home,” Clint says, but Phil looks at the people gathered around him, looks down at the folder in his hand that contains another chance and an untravelled road, and can’t help but think that he might already be home.

Late that night, with Clint curled next to him, snoring softly, Phil thinks of the wreckage of his life, and the foreign path that is lying in front of him. It has taken less than two months for his rigorously planned academic career to completely fall apart, and - well, when he actually thinks about it, he’s never felt better. He laughs softly, trying to picture this image of himself dressed all in black, headset on, tool belt loosely hanging around his waist, and he thinks, sure, he can be Phil Coulson, theatre kid. Sure, he can run a travelling children’s theatre. He can be anything, as long as at the end of the day, he has Clint Barton smiling at him. Or Clint Barton being exhausted, or tired and cranky, or even petulant and snippish, none of it matters because as long as Clint is there, Phil is pretty sure that everything will be alright in his world. He’ll adapt.

Clint shifts in bed, and snuggles deeper into Phil’s side, snuffling gently in his sleep. Trying not to jostle his boyfriend awake, Phil reaches over to his nightstand and signs the paperwork that will make him the Production Manager for the Stark Robotics Theatre.

\---

**Two months later...**

“Barton, I need the lights focused in the next twenty minutes!” Phil yells out, looking at the pipes above the stage. It is six in the morning, they have only two hours before their performance at Audubon Elementary School, and they’ve driven all night to get here, and the lighting plot that was promised to be hung and focused before they even arrived, is decidedly not focused at all.

“Do you want me to do the lights more, or unload the rest of the truck more, honey cheeks?” Clint asks, as he walks a stack of flats across the stage with Natasha. Phil grins, he’d built most of those flats under Clint’s watchful eye. Except the one which he’d managed to build completely upside down and had to rebuild with Natasha chuckling at him, it had gone well. It’s nice, he thinks, rubbing his recently developed calluses, enjoys the feel of his aching muscles. Phil has certainly lost some of the professorial fat around his middle, now that he finds himself performing manual labour for a few hours a day, and he can’t complain, because Clint has definitely developed a new - and often appreciated - appreciation for Phil’s biceps.

“Natasha and Tony can unload the truck!” Phil insists.

“I can’t, I’m fixing Dum-E's programming! I was going to do it in the van, but I had to drive because Natasha needed to fix costume pieces, which I don’t think Bruce designed for her more acrobatic movements, and Pepper keeps on saying that it is very dangerous to solder wires in a moving vehicle anyway.“ Tony yelps from somewhere backstage.

“Can’t you unload the truck first, Stark?” Phil begs, already divesting himself of his paperwork, and pulling  a pair of workgloves on.

“We’re Stark _Robotics_ Theatre, Coulson! The _robot_ is important!” Tony retorts.

Phil sighs, and heads out to help Natasha and Clint. They are laughing, happy, dressed in jeans and dark flannel, easily loading out the series of crates that compose the simple-by-Tony-standards Jack in the Beanstalk set.

“I’ll unload the truck with Natasha, please go focus the lights, Clint. I left notes on the lighting plot, the stage elevations they sent us were wrong and a pipe is in the wrong place, but then they were supposed to have all the lighting done, and they haven’t, so I should have seen this coming. We’ll do the simplified light plot; it’s sitting on the lightboard if you need it.” Phil commands, reaching over to take a box of props from Clint. 

“We’ll have to repair a few background flats before the next show, but we can do it here, their shop foreman said we could use their shop - what, why are you looking at me like that?” Phil asks, because Clint is looking at him very oddly, and with a cheeky sparkle in his eyes.

“You are amazing, Phil, do you know that? You’re so hot when you just... _organize_ things.” Clint says, landing a quick kiss on Phil’s cheek, as he skips into the theatre, presumably to actually deal with the messy stage lighting situation.

Natasha grins, pushing a wheeled crate along. “You’re taking to all this surprisingly well.”

“Really? Is it surprising? Did I not come off like someone who would enjoy driving six hours a day, sleeping in ratty motels, and dealing with Tony Stark’s last minute set modifications and your collective shenanigans on an almost daily basis?” Phil asks with a straight face, and Natasha laughs and rolls her eyes at him.

“The ratty motels are because Pepper Potts runs our finances with an iron fist, and insists that the theatre needs to be self sufficient.” Natasha groans. “She’s the sweetest gal.”

“Pepper says we already have a decent profit margin. Maybe we can upgrade to the Holiday Inn on our next stop.” Phil hopes, following Natasha into the theatre with his own pile of crates. But he doesn’t actually mind the motels, even if - or maybe because - he has to put up with Clint squeezing into a tiny twin bed with him. Really, it is an alarmingly delightful proposition.

He looks up. “Mr. Barton! Wear a safety harness, please, for heaven’s sake.”

Tony and Natasha do manage to get the set up quickly, as Clint finishes the lighting focus. Phil runs through his cues quickly, requiring only a few lights to be refocused, which Clint does with remarkable efficiency. And the show is ready, Phil thinks. It should be, they’ve been performing this for a month, and they’ve made it all the way from Los Angeles to Seattle, and they’ve done thirty performances in eighteen elementary schools. The cargo truck has broken down once, the van twice, and a mislabelled power breaker in an old school auditorium had left Clint scrambling for replacement lamps for a day. But it doesn’t matter if something goes wrong - he’ll adapt.

The audience files in, excited children and tired educators, chattering happily about robots and fairytales. Phil talks to the theatre’s house manager, and it is apparently another sell out show, and the buzz in the local media for it has been excellent. Backstage, Phil knows that Natasha is getting dressed in her Jack costume, and watches as Clint, dressed in deliciously tight black jeans, rolls Dum-E the Beanstalk into place. Dum-E whirrs a small hello in his direction. Phil smiles.

Phil settles behind his lightboard at his stage manager’s desk, and opens his prompt book, running his fingers over his small margin notes, already crossed out and rewritten many times.

“Clint, two things. One, I love you. Two, is Natasha in place?” he asks. Clint is backstage now, juggling some hybrid role of stage crew and assistant stage manager and the most amazing, competent man that Phil has ever seen naked.

“Yep. And I can see Tony offstage left with Dum-E’s remote control, and he’s in the right costume, and I’m standing by to get him in the silly ogre suit.” Clint reports back, his voice clear and confident in Phil’s headset.

“Great. We are ready, then?” Phil confirms.

“Yeah, just one thing.”

“What?”

“I think you’re the greatest, and I love your stupid face.” Clint says, as sincerely as one can muster over a headset.

“Well, then,” Phil says, drawing the house lights down as the audience falls silent in anticipation. “ _Let’s do this_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, thank you guys so much for sticking with this story. I never thought I'd write an AU and then I wrote 30k words of one, and it was actually lots of fun! You can follow me on Tumblr at [dustjane.tumblr.com](http://dustjane.tumblr.com), and er...let me know if you want more in this universe. I have lots and lots of theatre shenanigan experience to draw upon. 
> 
> Footnote time!
> 
> 1\. The Stark Robotics Theatre is a very barebones theatre company, but it totally does happen. Pretend that they do hire local crew when necessary. However, it is not rare at all for travelling crew members to do multiple jobs. 
> 
> 2\. Technically, both Phil and Pepper are sharing the production manager role, with Phil being responsible for all on-the-ground work, and Pepper handling anything that can be done remotely.
> 
> 3\. In case it wasn't clear, Natasha is playing Jack in this production of Jack in the Beanstalk. Tony plays all the other roles, except the Beanstalk.
> 
> 4\. There is a bit of handwaving about resolving the academic disciplinary committee half of things. Sorry. I don't have personal experience with plagiarizing papers in college. :)


End file.
